MRS WHITEFIELD. Of course. My fault as usual! [She follows Ann].

TANNER. [coming from the bockcase] Ramsden: we're
beaten--smashed--nonentitized, like her mother.

RAMSDEN. Stuff, Sir. [He follows Mrs Whitefield out of the room].

TANNER. [left alone with Octavius, stares whimsically at him] Tavy: do
you want to count for something in the world?

OCTAVIUS. I want to count for something as a poet: I want to write a
great play.

TANNER. With Ann as the heroine?

OCTAVIUS. Yes: I confess it.

TANNER. Take care, Tavy. The play with Ann as the heroine is all right;
but if you're not very careful, by Heaven she'll marry you.

OCTAVIUS. [sighing] No such luck, Jack!

TANNER. Why, man, your head is in the lioness's mouth: you are half
swallowed already--in three bites--Bite One, Ricky; Bite Two, Ticky;
Bite Three, Tavy; and down you go.

OCTAVIUS. She is the same to everybody, Jack: you know her ways.

TANNER. Yes: she breaks everybody's back with the stroke of her paw; but
the question is, which of us will she eat? My own opinion is that she
means to eat you.

OCTAVIUS. [rising, pettishly] It's horrible to talk like that about her
when she is upstairs crying for her father. But I do so want her to eat
me that I can bear your brutalities because they give me hope.

TANNER. Tavy; that's the devilish side of a woman's fascination: she
makes you will your own destruction.

OCTAVIUS. But it's not destruction: it's fulfilment.

TANNER. Yes, of HER purpose; and that purpose is neither her happiness
nor yours, but Nature's. Vitality in a woman is a blind fury of
creation. She sacrifices herself to it: do you think she will hesitate
to sacrifice you?

OCTAVIUS. Why, it is just because she is self-sacrificing that she will
not sacrifice those she loves.

TANNER. That is the profoundest of mistakes, Tavy. It is the
self-sacrificing women that sacrifice others most recklessly. Because
they are unselfish, they are kind in little things. Because they have a
purpose which is not their own purpose, but that of the whole universe,
a man is nothing to them but an instrument of that purpose.

OCTAVIUS. Don't be ungenerous, Jack. They take the tenderest care of us.

TANNER. Yes, as a soldier takes care of his rifle or a musician of his
violin. But do they allow us any purpose or freedom of our own? Will
they lend us to one another? Can the strongest man escape from them when
once he is appropriated? They tremble when we are in danger, and weep
when we die; but the tears are not for us, but for a father wasted, a
son's breeding thrown away. They accuse us of treating them as a mere
means to our pleasure; but how can so feeble and transient a folly as
a man's selfish pleasure enslave a woman as the whole purpose of Nature
embodied in a woman can enslave a man?

OCTAVIUS. What matter, if the slavery makes us happy?

TANNER. No matter at all if you have no purpose of your own, and are,
like most men, a mere breadwinner. But you, Tavy, are an artist: that
is, you have a purpose as absorbing and as unscrupulous as a woman's
purpose.

OCTAVIUS. Not unscrupulous.

TANNER. Quite unscrupulous. The true artist will let his wife starve,
his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at
seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art. To women he is half
vivisector, half vampire. He gets into intimate relations with them to
study them, to strip the mask of convention from them, to surprise their
inmost secrets, knowing that they have the power to rouse his deepest
creative energies, to rescue him from his cold reason, to make him see
visions and dream dreams, to inspire him, as he calls it. He persuades
women that they may do this for their own purpose whilst he really means
them to do it for his. He steals the mother's milk and blackens it to
make printer's ink to scoff at her and glorify ideal women with. He
pretends to spare her the pangs of childbearing so that he may have
for himself the tenderness and fostering that belong of right to her
children. Since marriage began, the great artist has been known as a
bad husband. But he is worse: he is a child-robber, a bloodsucker, a
hypocrite and a cheat. Perish the race and wither a thousand women if
only the sacrifice of them enable him to act Hamlet better, to paint
a finer picture, to write a deeper poem, a greater play, a profounder
philosophy! For mark you, Tavy, the artist's work is to show us
ourselves as we really are. Our minds are nothing but this knowledge of
ourselves; and he who adds a jot to such knowledge creates new mind as
surely as any woman creates new men. In the rage of that creation he
is as ruthless as the woman, as dangerous to her as she to him, and
as horribly fascinating. Of all human struggles there is none so
treacherous and remorseless as the struggle between the artist man
and the mother woman. Which shall use up the other? that is the issue
between them. And it is all the deadlier because, in your romanticist
cant, they love one another.

OCTAVIUS. Even if it were so--and I don't admit it for a moment--it is
out of the deadliest struggles that we get the noblest characters.

TANNER. Remember that the next time you meet a grizzly bear or a Bengal
tiger, Tavy.

OCTAVIUS. I meant where there is love, Jack.

TANNER. Oh, the tiger will love you. There is no love sincerer than the
love of food. I think Ann loves you that way: she patted your cheek as
if it were a nicely underdone chop.

OCTAVIUS. You know, Jack, I should have to run away from you if I did
not make it a fixed rule not to mind anything you say. You come out with
perfectly revolting things sometimes.

Ramsden returns, followed by Ann. They come in quickly, with their
former leisurely air of decorous grief changed to one of genuine
concern, and, on Ramsden's part, of worry. He comes between the two men,
intending to address Octavius, but pulls himself up abruptly as he sees
Tanner.

RAMSDEN. I hardly expected to find you still here, Mr Tanner.

TANNER. Am I in the way? Good morning, fellow guardian [he goes towards
the door].

ANN. Stop, Jack. Granny: he must know, sooner or later.

RAMSDEN. Octavius: I have a very serious piece of news for you. It is of
the most private and delicate nature--of the most painful nature too, I
am sorry to say. Do you wish Mr Tanner to be present whilst I explain?

OCTAVIUS. [turning pale] I have no secrets from Jack.

RAMSDEN. Before you decide that finally, let me say that the news
concerns your sister, and that it is terrible news.

OCTAVIUS. Violet! What has happened? Is she--dead?

RAMSDEN. I am not sure that it is not even worse than that.

OCTAVIUS. Is she badly hurt? Has there been an accident?

RAMSDEN. No: nothing of that sort.

TANNER. Ann: will you have the common humanity to tell us what the
matter is?

ANN. [half whispering] I can't. Violet has done something dreadful. We
shall have to get her away somewhere. [She flutters to the writing
table and sits in Ramsden's chair, leaving the three men to fight it out
between them].

OCTAVIUS. [enlightened] Is that what you meant, Mr Ramsden?

RAMSDEN. Yes. [Octavius sinks upon a chair, crushed]. I am afraid there
is no doubt that Violet did not really go to Eastbourne three weeks ago
when we thought she was with the Parry Whitefields. And she called on a
strange doctor yesterday with a wedding ring on her finger. Mrs. Parry
Whitefield met her there by chance; and so the whole thing came out.

OCTAVIUS. [rising with his fists clenched] Who is the scoundrel?

ANN. She won't tell us.

OCTAVIUS. [collapsing upon his chair again] What a frightful thing!

TANNER. [with angry sarcasm] Dreadful. Appalling. Worse than death, as
Ramsden says. [He comes to Octavius]. What would you not give, Tavy, to
turn it into a railway accident, with all her bones broken or something
equally respectable and deserving of sympathy?

OCTAVIUS. Don't be brutal, Jack.

TANNER. Brutal! Good Heavens, man, what are you crying for? Here is
a woman whom we all supposed to be making bad water color sketches,
practising Grieg and Brahms, gadding about to concerts and parties,
wasting her life and her money. We suddenly learn that she has turned
from these sillinesses to the fulfilment of her highest purpose and
greatest function--to increase, multiply and replenish the earth. And
instead of admiring her courage and rejoicing in her instinct; instead
of crowning the completed womanhood and raising the triumphal strain of
"Unto us a child is born: unto us a son is given," here you are--you who
have been as merry as Brigs in your mourning for the dead--all pulling
long faces and looking as ashamed and disgraced as if the girl had
committed the vilest of crimes.

RAMSDEN. [roaring with rage] I will not have these abominations uttered
in my house [he smites the writing table with his fist].

TANNER. Look here: if you insult me again I'll take you at your word and
leave your house. Ann: where is Violet now?

ANN. Why? Are you going to her?

TANNER. Of course I am going to her. She wants help; she wants money;
she wants respect and congratulation. She wants every chance for her
child. She does not seem likely to get it from you: she shall from me.
Where is she?

ANN. Don't be so headstrong, Jack. She's upstairs.

TANNER. What! Under Ramsden's sacred roof! Go and do your miserable
duty, Ramsden. Hunt her out into the street. Cleanse your threshold from
her contamination. Vindicate the purity of your English home. I'll go
for a cab.

ANN. [alarmed] Oh, Granny, you mustn't do that.

OCTAVIUS. [broken-heartedly, rising] I'll take her away, Mr Ramsden. She
had no right to come to your house.

RAMSDEN. [indignantly] But I am only too anxious to help her. [turning
on Tanner] How dare you, sir, impute such monstrous intentions to me?
I protest against it. I am ready to put down my last penny to save her
from being driven to run to you for protection.

TANNER. [subsiding] It's all right, then. He's not going to act up to
his principles. It's agreed that we all stand by Violet.

OCTAVIUS. But who is the man? He can make reparation by marrying her;
and he shall, or he shall answer for it to me.

RAMSDEN. He shall, Octavius. There you speak like a man.

TANNER. Then you don't think him a scoundrel, after all?

OCTAVIUS. Not a scoundrel! He is a heartless scoundrel.

RAMSDEN. A damned scoundrel. I beg your pardon, Annie; but I can say no
less.

TANNER. So we are to marry your sister to a damned scoundrel by way of
reforming her character! On my soul, I think you are all mad.

ANN. Don't be absurd, Jack. Of course you are quite right, Tavy; but we
don't know who he is: Violet won't tell us.

TANNER. What on earth does it matter who he is? He's done his part; and
Violet must do the rest.

RAMSDEN. [beside himself] Stuff! lunacy! There is a rascal in our midst,
a libertine, a villain worse than a murderer; and we are not to
learn who he is! In our ignorance we are to shake him by the hand; to
introduce him into our homes; to trust our daughters with him; to--to--

ANN. [coaxingly] There, Granny, don't talk so loud. It's most shocking:
we must all admit that; but if Violet won't tell us, what can we do?
Nothing. Simply nothing.

RAMSDEN. Hmph! I'm not so sure of that. If any man has paid Violet any
special attention, we can easily find that out. If there is any man of
notoriously loose principles among us--

TANNER. Ahem!

RAMSDEN. [raising his voice] Yes sir, I repeat, if there is any man of
notoriously loose principles among us--

TANNER. Or any man notoriously lacking in self-control.

RAMSDEN. [aghast] Do you dare to suggest that I am capable of such an
act?

TANNER. My dear Ramsden, this is an act of which every man is capable.
That is what comes of getting at cross purposes with Nature. The
suspicion you have just flung at me clings to us all. It's a sort of mud
that sticks to the judge's ermine or the cardinal's robe as fast as to
the rags of the tramp. Come, Tavy: don't look so bewildered: it might
have been me: it might have been Ramsden; just as it might have been
anybody. If it had, what could we do but lie and protest as Ramsden is
going to protest.

RAMSDEN. [choking] I--I--I--

TANNER. Guilt itself could not stammer more confusedly, And yet you know
perfectly well he's innocent, Tavy.

RAMSDEN. [exhausted] I am glad you admit that, sir. I admit, myself,
that there is an element of truth in what you say, grossly as you
may distort it to gratify your malicious humor. I hope, Octavius, no
suspicion of me is possible in your mind.

OCTAVIUS. Of you! No, not for a moment.

TANNER. [drily] I think he suspects me just a little.

OCTAVIUS. Jack: you couldn't--you wouldn't--

TANNER. Why not?

OCTAVIUS. [appalled] Why not!

TANNER. Oh, well, I'll tell you why not. First, you would feel bound
to quarrel with me. Second, Violet doesn't like me. Third, if I had
the honor of being the father of Violet's child, I should boast of it
instead of denying it. So be easy: our Friendship is not in danger.

OCTAVIUS. I should have put away the suspicion with horror if only you
would think and feel naturally about it. I beg your pardon.

TANNER. MY pardon! nonsense! And now let's sit down and have a family
council. [He sits down. The rest follow his example, more or less under
protest]. Violet is going to do the State a service; consequently she
must be packed abroad like a criminal until it's over. What's happening
upstairs?

ANN. Violet is in the housekeeper's room--by herself, of course.

TANNER. Why not in the drawingroom?

ANN. Don't be absurd, Jack. Miss Ramsden is in the drawingroom with my
mother, considering what to do.

TANNER. Oh! the housekeeper's room is the penitentiary, I suppose; and
the prisoner is waiting to be brought before her judges. The old cats!

ANN. Oh, Jack!

RAMSDEN. You are at present a guest beneath the roof of one of the old
cats, sir. My sister is the mistress of this house.

TANNER. She would put me in the housekeeper's room, too, if she dared,
Ramsden. However, I withdraw cats. Cats would have more sense. Ann: as
your guardian, I order you to go to Violet at once and be particularly
kind to her.

ANN. I have seen her, Jack. And I am sorry to say I am afraid she is
going to be rather obstinate about going abroad. I think Tavy ought to
speak to her about it.

OCTAVIUS. How can I speak to her about such a thing [he breaks down]?

ANN. Don't break down, Ricky. Try to bear it for all our sakes.

RAMSDEN. Life is not all plays and poems, Octavius. Come! face it like a
man.

TANNER. [chafing again] Poor dear brother! Poor dear friends of the
family! Poor dear Tabbies and Grimalkins. Poor dear everybody except the
woman who is going to risk her life to create another life! Tavy: don't
you be a selfish ass. Away with you and talk to Violet; and bring her
down here if she cares to come. [Octavius rises]. Tell her we'll stand
by her.

RAMSDEN. [rising] No, sir--

TANNER. [rising also and interrupting him] Oh, we understand: it's
against your conscience; but still you'll do it.

OCTAVIUS. I assure you all, on my word, I never meant to be selfish.
It's so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right.

TANNER. My dear Tavy, your pious English habit of regarding the world
as a moral gymnasium built expressly to strengthen your character in,
occasionally leads you to think about your own confounded principles
when you should be thinking about other people's necessities. The need
of the present hour is a happy mother and a healthy baby. Bend your
energies on that; and you will see your way clearly enough.

Octavius, much perplexed, goes out.

RAMSDEN. [facing Tanner impressively] And Morality, sir? What is to
become of that?

TANNER. Meaning a weeping Magdalen and an innocent child branded with
her shame. Not in our circle, thank you. Morality can go to its father
the devil.

RAMSDEN. I thought so, sir. Morality sent to the devil to please our
libertines, male and female. That is to be the future of England, is it?

TANNER. Oh, England will survive your disapproval. Meanwhile, I
understand that you agree with me as to the practical course we are to
take?

RAMSDEN. Not in your spirit sir. Not for your reasons.

TANNER. You can explain that if anybody calls you to account, here or
hereafter. [He turns away, and plants himself in front of Mr Herbert
Spencer, at whom he stares gloomily].

ANN. [rising and coming to Ramsden] Granny: hadn't you better go up to
the drawingroom and tell them what we intend to do?

RAMSDEN. [looking pointedly at Tanner] I hardly like to leave you alone
with this gentleman. Will you not come with me?

ANN. Miss Ramsden would not like to speak about it before me, Granny. I
ought not to be present.

RAMSDEN. You are right: I should have thought of that. You are a good
girl, Annie.

He pats her on the shoulder. She looks up at him with beaming eyes and
he goes out, much moved. Having disposed of him, she looks at Tanner.
His back being turned to her, she gives a moment's attention to her
personal appearance, then softly goes to him and speaks almost into his
ear.

ANN. Jack [he turns with a start]: are you glad that you are my
guardian? You don't mind being made responsible for me, I hope.

TANNER. The latest addition to your collection of scapegoats, eh?

ANN. Oh, that stupid old joke of yours about me! Do please drop it. Why
do you say things that you know must pain me? I do my best to please
you, Jack: I suppose I may tell you so now that you are my guardian. You
will make me so unhappy if you refuse to be friends with me.

TANNER. [studying her as gloomily as he studied the dust] You need not
go begging for my regard. How unreal our moral judgments are! You seem
to me to have absolutely no conscience--only hypocrisy; and you can't
see the difference--yet there is a sort of fascination about you. I
always attend to you, somehow. I should miss you if I lost you.

ANN. [tranquilly slipping her arm into his and walking about with him]
But isn't that only natural, Jack? We have known each other since we
were children. Do you remember?

TANNER. [abruptly breaking loose] Stop! I remember EVERYTHING.

ANN. Oh, I daresay we were often very silly; but--

TANNER. I won't have it, Ann. I am no more that schoolboy now than I
am the dotard of ninety I shall grow into if I live long enough. It is
over: let me forget it.

ANN. Wasn't it a happy time? [She attempts to take his arm again].

TANNER. Sit down and behave yourself. [He makes her sit down in the
chair next the writing table]. No doubt it was a happy time for you. You
were a good girl and never compromised yourself. And yet the wickedest
child that ever was slapped could hardly have had a better time. I can
understand the success with which you bullied the other girls: your
virtue imposed on them. But tell me this: did you ever know a good boy?

ANN. Of course. All boys are foolish sometimes; but Tavy was always a
really good boy.

TANNER. [struck by this] Yes: you're right. For some reason you never
tempted Tavy.

ANN. Tempted! Jack!

TANNER. Yes, my dear Lady Mephistopheles, tempted. You were insatiably
curious as to what a boy might be capable of, and diabolically clever at
getting through his guard and surprising his inmost secrets.

ANN. What nonsense! All because you used to tell me long stories of the
wicked things you had done--silly boys tricks! And you call such things
inmost secrets: Boys' secrets are just like men's; and you know what
they are!

TANNER. [obstinately] No I don't. What are they, pray?

ANN. Why, the things they tell everybody, of course.

TANNER. Now I swear I told you things I told no one else. You lured me
into a compact by which we were to have no secrets from one another. We
were to tell one another everything, I didn't notice that you never told
me anything.

ANN. You didn't want to talk about me, Jack. You wanted to talk about
yourself.

TANNER. Ah, true, horribly true. But what a devil of a child you must
have been to know that weakness and to play on it for the satisfaction
of your own curiosity! I wanted to brag to you, to make myself
interesting. And I found myself doing all sorts of mischievous things
simply to have something to tell you about. I fought with boys I didn't
hate; I lied about things I might just as well have told the truth
about; I stole things I didn't want; I kissed little girls I didn't care
for. It was all bravado: passionless and therefore unreal.

ANN. I never told of you, Jack.

TANNER. No; but if you had wanted to stop me you would have told of me.
You wanted me to go on.

ANN. [flashing out] Oh, that's not true: it's NOT true, Jack. I never
wanted you to do those dull, disappointing, brutal, stupid, vulgar
things. I always hoped that it would be something really heroic at last.
[Recovering herself] Excuse me, Jack; but the things you did were never
a bit like the things I wanted you to do. They often gave me great
uneasiness; but I could not tell on you and get you into trouble. And
you were only a boy. I knew you would grow out of them. Perhaps I was
wrong.

TANNER. [sardonically] Do not give way to remorse, Ann. At least
nineteen twentieths of the exploits I confessed to you were pure lies. I
soon noticed that you didn't like the true stories.

ANN. Of course I knew that some of the things couldn't have happened.
But--

TANNER. You are going to remind me that some of the most disgraceful
ones did.

ANN. [fondly, to his great terror] I don't want to remind you of
anything. But I knew the people they happened to, and heard about them.

TANNER. Yes; but even the true stories were touched up for telling.
A sensitive boy's humiliations may be very good fun for ordinary
thickskinned grown-ups; but to the boy himself they are so acute,
so ignominious, that he cannot confess them--cannot but deny them
passionately. However, perhaps it was as well for me that I romanced a
bit; for, on the one occasion when I told you the truth, you threatened
to tell of me.

ANN. Oh, never. Never once.

TANNER. Yes, you did. Do you remember a dark-eyed girl named Rachel
Rosetree? [Ann's brows contract for an instant involuntarily]. I got up
a love affair with her; and we met one night in the garden and walked
about very uncomfortably with our arms round one another, and kissed at
parting, and were most conscientiously romantic. If that love affair had
gone on, it would have bored me to death; but it didn't go on; for the
next thing that happened was that Rachel cut me because she found out
that I had told you. How did she find it out? From you. You went to her
and held the guilty secret over her head, leading her a life of abject
terror and humiliation by threatening to tell on her.

ANN. And a very good thing for her, too. It was my duty to stop her
misconduct; and she is thankful to me for it now.

TANNER. Is she?

ANN. She ought to be, at all events.

TANNER. It was not your duty to stop my misconduct, I suppose.

ANN. I did stop it by stopping her.

TANNER. Are you sure of that? You stopped my telling you about my
adventures; but how do you know that you stopped the adventures?

ANN. Do you mean to say that you went on in the same way with other
girls?

TANNER. No. I had enough of that sort of romantic tomfoolery with
Rachel.

ANN. [unconvinced] Then why did you break off our confidences and become
quite strange to me?

TANNER. [enigmatically] It happened just then that I got something that
I wanted to keep all to myself instead of sharing it with you.

ANN. I am sure I shouldn't have asked for any of it if you had grudged
it.

TANNER. It wasn't a box of sweets, Ann. It was something you'd never
have let me call my own.

ANN. [incredulously] What?

TANNER. My soul.

ANN. Oh, do be sensible, Jack. You know you're talking nonsense.

TANNER. The most solemn earnest, Ann. You didn't notice at that time
that you were getting a soul too. But you were. It was not for nothing
that you suddenly found you had a moral duty to chastise and reform
Rachel. Up to that time you had traded pretty extensively in being a
good child; but you had never set up a sense of duty to others. Well, I
set one up too. Up to that time I had played the boy buccaneer with no
more conscience than a fox in a poultry farm. But now I began to have
scruples, to feel obligations, to find that veracity and honor were no
longer goody-goody expressions in the mouths of grown up people, but
compelling principles in myself.

ANN. [quietly] Yes, I suppose you're right. You were beginning to be a
man, and I to be a woman.

TANNER. Are you sure it was not that we were beginning to be something
more? What does the beginning of manhood and womanhood mean in most
people's mouths? You know: it means the beginning of love. But love
began long before that for me. Love played its part in the earliest
dreams and follies and romances I can remember--may I say the earliest
follies and romances we can remember?--though we did not understand it
at the time. No: the change that came to me was the birth in me of moral
passion; and I declare that according to my experience moral passion is
the only real passion.

ANN. All passions ought to be moral, Jack.

TANNER. Ought! Do you think that anything is strong enough to impose
oughts on a passion except a stronger passion still?

ANN. Our moral sense controls passion, Jack. Don't be stupid.

TANNER. Our moral sense! And is that not a passion? Is the devil to
have all the passions as well as all the good times? If it were not a
passion--if it were not the mightiest of the passions, all the other
passions would sweep it away like a leaf before a hurricane. It is the
birth of that passion that turns a child into a man.

ANN. There are other passions, Jack. Very strong ones.

TANNER. All the other passions were in me before; but they were idle
and aimless--mere childish greedinesses and cruelties, curiosities
and fancies, habits and superstitions, grotesque and ridiculous to the
mature intelligence. When they suddenly began to shine like newly lit
flames it was by no light of their own, but by the radiance of the
dawning moral passion. That passion dignified them, gave them conscience
and meaning, found them a mob of appetites and organized them into an
army of purposes and principles. My soul was born of that passion.

ANN. I noticed that you got more sense. You were a dreadfully
destructive boy before that.

TANNER. Destructive! Stuff! I was only mischievous.

ANN. Oh Jack, you were very destructive. You ruined all the young fir
trees by chopping off their leaders with a wooden sword. You broke all
the cucumber frames with your catapult. You set fire to the common: the
police arrested Tavy for it because he ran away when he couldn't stop
you. You--

TANNER. Pooh! pooh! pooh! these were battles, bombardments, stratagems
to save our scalps from the red Indians. You have no imagination, Ann. I
am ten times more destructive now than I was then. The moral passion has
taken my destructiveness in hand and directed it to moral ends. I have
become a reformer, and, like all reformers, an iconoclast. I no longer
break cucumber frames and burn gorse bushes: I shatter creeds and
demolish idols.

ANN. [bored] I am afraid I am too feminine to see any sense in
destruction. Destruction can only destroy.

TANNER. Yes. That is why it is so useful. Construction cumbers the
ground with institutions made by busybodies. Destruction clears it and
gives us breathing space and liberty.

ANN. It's no use, Jack. No woman will agree with you there.

TANNER. That's because you confuse construction and destruction with
creation and murder. They're quite different: I adore creation and abhor
murder. Yes: I adore it in tree and flower, in bird and beast, even
in you. [A flush of interest and delight suddenly clears the growing
perplexity and boredom from her face]. It was the creative instinct that
led you to attach me to you by bonds that have left their mark on me
to this day. Yes, Ann: the old childish compact between us was an
unconscious love compact.

ANN. Jack!

TANNER. Oh, don't be alarmed--

ANN. I am not alarmed.

TANNER. [whimsically] Then you ought to be: where are your principles?

ANN. Jack: are you serious or are you not?

TANNER. Do you mean about the moral passion?

ANN. No, no; the other one. [Confused] Oh! you are so silly; one never
knows how to take you.

TANNER. You must take me quite seriously. I am your guardian; and it is
my duty to improve your mind.

ANN. The love compact is over, then, is it? I suppose you grew tired of
me?

TANNER. No; but the moral passion made our childish relations
impossible. A jealous sense of my new individuality arose in me.

ANN. You hated to be treated as a boy any longer. Poor Jack!

TANNER. Yes, because to be treated as a boy was to be taken on the old
footing. I had become a new person; and those who knew the old person
laughed at me. The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor: he took
my measure anew every time he saw me, whilst all the rest went on with
their old measurements and expected them to fit me.

ANN. You became frightfully self-conscious.

TANNER. When you go to heaven, Ann, you will be frightfully conscious of
your wings for the first year or so. When you meet your relatives there,
and they persist in treating you as if you were still a mortal, you will
not be able to bear them. You will try to get into a circle which has
never known you except as an angel.

ANN. So it was only your vanity that made you run away from us after
all?

TANNER. Yes, only my vanity, as you call it.

ANN. You need not have kept away from ME on that account.

TANNER. From you above all others. You fought harder than anybody
against my emancipation.

ANN. [earnestly] Oh, how wrong you are! I would have done anything for
you.

TANNER. Anything except let me get loose from you. Even then you had
acquired by instinct that damnable woman's trick of heaping obligations
on a man, of placing yourself so entirely and helplessly at his mercy
that at last he dare not take a step without running to you for leave.
I know a poor wretch whose one desire in life is to run away from his
wife. She prevents him by threatening to throw herself in front of the
engine of the train he leaves her in. That is what all women do. If we
try to go where you do not want us to go there is no law to prevent us,
but when we take the first step your breasts are under our foot as it
descends: your bodies are under our wheels as we start. No woman shall
ever enslave me in that way.

ANN. But, Jack, you cannot get through life without considering other
people a little.

TANNER. Ay; but what other people? It is this consideration of other
people or rather this cowardly fear of them which we call consideration
that makes us the sentimental slaves we are. To consider you, as you
call it, is to substitute your will for my own. How if it be a baser
will than mine? Are women taught better than men or worse? Are mobs of
voters taught better than statesmen or worse? Worse, of course, in both
cases. And then what sort of world are you going to get, with its public
men considering its voting mobs, and its private men considering their
wives? What does Church and State mean nowadays? The Woman and the
Ratepayer.

ANN. [placidly] I am so glad you understand politics, Jack: it will
be most useful to you if you go into parliament [he collapses like a
pricked bladder]. But I am sorry you thought my influence a bad one.

TANNER. I don't say it was a bad one. But bad or good, I didn't choose
to be cut to your measure. And I won't be cut to it.

ANN. Nobody wants you to, Jack. I assure you--really on my word--I
don't mind your queer opinions one little bit. You know we have all been
brought up to have advanced opinions. Why do you persist in thinking me
so narrow minded?

TANNER. That's the danger of it. I know you don't mind, because you've
found out that it doesn't matter. The boa constrictor doesn't mind the
opinions of a stag one little bit when once she has got her coils round
it.

ANN. [rising in sudden enlightenment] O-o-o-o-oh! NOW I understand why
you warned Tavy that I am a boa constrictor. Granny told me. [She laughs
and throws her boa around her neck]. Doesn't it feel nice and soft,
Jack?

TANNER. [in the toils] You scandalous woman, will you throw away even
your hypocrisy?

ANN. I am never hypocritical with you, Jack. Are you angry? [She
withdraws the boa and throws it on a chair]. Perhaps I shouldn't have
done that.

TANNER. [contemptuously] Pooh, prudery! Why should you not, if it amuses
you?

ANN. [Shyly] Well, because--because I suppose what you really meant by
the boa constrictor was THIS [she puts her arms round his neck].

TANNER. [Staring at her] Magnificent audacity! [She laughs and pats his
cheeks]. Now just to think that if I mentioned this episode not a soul
would believe me except the people who would cut me for telling, whilst
if you accused me of it nobody would believe my denial.

ANN. [taking her arms away with perfect dignity] You are incorrigible,
Jack. But you should not jest about our affection for one another.
Nobody could possibly misunderstand it. YOU do not misunderstand it, I
hope.

TANNER. My blood interprets for me, Ann. Poor Ricky Tiky Tavy!

ANN. [looking quickly at him as if this were a new light] Surely you are
not so absurd as to be jealous of Tavy.

TANNER. Jealous! Why should I be? But I don't wonder at your grip of
him. I feel the coils tightening round my very self, though you are only
playing with me.

ANN. Do you think I have designs on Tavy?

TANNER. I know you have.

ANN. [earnestly] Take care, Jack. You may make Tavy very happy if you
mislead him about me.

TANNER. Never fear: he will not escape you.

ANN. I wonder are you really a clever man!

TANNER. Why this sudden misgiving on the subject?

ANN. You seem to understand all the things I don't understand; but you
are a perfect baby in the things I do understand.

TANNER. I understand how Tavy feels for you, Ann; you may depend on
that, at all events.

ANN. And you think you understand how I feel for Tavy, don't you?

TANNER. I know only too well what is going to happen to poor Tavy.

ANN. I should laugh at you, Jack, if it were not for poor papa's death.
Mind! Tavy will be very unhappy.

TANNER. Yes; but he won't know it, poor devil. He is a thousand times
too good for you. That's why he is going to make the mistake of his life
about you.

ANN. I think men make more mistakes by being too clever than by being
too good [she sits down, with a trace of contempt for the whole male sex
in the elegant carriage of her shoulders].

TANNER. Oh, I know you don't care very much about Tavy. But there is
always one who kisses and one who only allows the kiss. Tavy will kiss;
and you will only turn the cheek. And you will throw him over if anybody
better turns up.

ANN. [offended] You have no right to say such things, Jack. They are not
true, and not delicate. If you and Tavy choose to be stupid about me,
that is not my fault.

TANNER. [remorsefully] Forgive my brutalities, Ann. They are levelled
at this wicked world, not at you. [She looks up at him, pleased and
forgiving. He becomes cautious at once]. All the same, I wish Ramsden
would come back. I never feel safe with you: there is a devilish
charm--or no: not a charm, a subtle interest [she laughs]. Just so: you
know it; and you triumph in it. Openly and shamelessly triumph in it!

ANN. What a shocking flirt you are, Jack!

TANNER. A flirt!! I!!

ANN. Yes, a flirt. You are always abusing and offending people, but you
never really mean to let go your hold of them.

TANNER. I will ring the bell. This conversation has already gone further
than I intended.

Ramsden and Octavius come back with Miss Ramsden, a hardheaded old
maiden lady in a plain brown silk gown, with enough rings, chains and
brooches to show that her plainness of dress is a matter of principle,
not of poverty. She comes into the room very determinedly: the two men,
perplexed and downcast, following her. Ann rises and goes eagerly to
meet her. Tanner retreats to the wall between the busts and pretends
to study the pictures. Ramsden goes to his table as usual; and Octavius
clings to the neighborhood of Tanner.

MISS RAMSDEN. [almost pushing Ann aside as she comes to Mr. Whitefield's
chair and plants herself there resolutely] I wash my hands of the whole
affair.

OCTAVIUS. [very wretched] I know you wish me to take Violet away, Miss
Ramsden. I will. [He turns irresolutely to the door].

RAMSDEN. No no--

MISS RAMSDEN. What is the use of saying no, Roebuck? Octavius knows that
I would not turn any truly contrite and repentant woman from your doors.
But when a woman is not only wicked, but intends to go on being wicked,
she and I part company.

ANN. Oh, Miss Ramsden, what do you mean? What has Violet said?

RAMSDEN. Violet is certainly very obstinate. She won't leave London. I
don't understand her.

MISS RAMSDEN. I do. It's as plain as the nose on your face, Roebuck,
that she won't go because she doesn't want to be separated from this
man, whoever he is.

ANN. Oh, surely, surely! Octavius: did you speak to her?

OCTAVIUS. She won't tell us anything. She won't make any arrangement
until she has consulted somebody. It can't be anybody else than the
scoundrel who has betrayed her.

TANNER. [to Octavius] Well, let her consult him. He will be glad enough
to have her sent abroad. Where is the difficulty?

MISS RAMSDEN. [Taking the answer out of Octavius's mouth]. The
difficulty, Mr Jack, is that when he offered to help her I didn't offer
to become her accomplice in her wickedness. She either pledges her word
never to see that man again, or else she finds some new friends; and the
sooner the better.

[The parlormaid appears at the door. Ann hastily resumes her seat, and
looks as unconcerned as possible. Octavius instinctively imitates her].

THE MAID. The cab is at the door, ma'am.

MISS RAMSDEN. What cab?

THE MAID. For Miss Robinson.

MISS RAMSDEN. Oh! [Recovering herself] All right. [The maid withdraws].
She has sent for a cab.

TANNER. I wanted to send for that cab half an hour ago.

MISS RAMSDEN. I am glad she understands the position she has placed
herself in.

RAMSDEN. I don't like her going away in this fashion, Susan. We had
better not do anything harsh.

OCTAVIUS. No: thank you again and again; but Miss Ramsden is quite
right. Violet cannot expect to stay.

ANN. Hadn't you better go with her, Tavy?

OCTAVIUS. She won't have me.

MISS RAMSDEN. Of course she won't. She's going straight to that man.

TANNER. As a natural result of her virtuous reception here.

RAMSDEN. [much troubled] There, Susan! You hear! and there's some truth
in it. I wish you could reconcile it with your principles to be a little
patient with this poor girl. She's very young; and there's a time for
everything.

MISS RAMSDEN. Oh, she will get all the sympathy she wants from the men.
I'm surprised at you, Roebuck.

TANNER. So am I, Ramsden, most favorably.

Violet appears at the door. She is as impenitent and self-assured a
young lady as one would desire to see among the best behaved of her sex.
Her small head and tiny resolute mouth and chin; her haughty crispness
of speech and trimness of carriage; the ruthless elegance of her
equipment, which includes a very smart hat with a dead bird in it, mark
a personality which is as formidable as it is exquisitely pretty. She is
not a siren, like Ann: admiration comes to her without any compulsion
or even interest on her part; besides, there is some fun in Ann, but in
this woman none, perhaps no mercy either: if anything restrains her, it
is intelligence and pride, not compassion. Her voice might be the
voice of a schoolmistress addressing a class of girls who had disgraced
themselves, as she proceeds with complete composure and some disgust to
say what she has come to say.

VIOLET. I have only looked in to tell Miss Ramsden that she will find
her birthday present to me, the filagree bracelet, in the housekeeper's
room.

TANNER. Do come in, Violet, and talk to us sensibly.

VIOLET. Thank you: I have had quite enough of the family conversation
this morning. So has your mother, Ann: she has gone home crying. But
at all events, I have found out what some of my pretended friends are
worth. Good bye.

TANNER. No, no: one moment. I have something to say which I beg you
to hear. [She looks at him without the slightest curiosity, but waits,
apparently as much to finish getting her glove on as to hear what he
has to say]. I am altogether on your side in this matter. I congratulate
you, with the sincerest respect, on having the courage to do what you
have done. You are entirely in the right; and the family is entirely in
the wrong.

Sensation. Ann and Miss Ramsden rise and turn toward the two. Violet,
more surprised than any of the others, forgets her glove, and comes
forward into the middle of the room, both puzzled and displeased.
Octavius alone does not move or raise his head; he is overwhelmed with
shame.

ANN. [pleading to Tanner to be sensible] Jack!

MISS RAMSDEN. [outraged] Well, I must say!

VIOLET. [sharply to Tanner] Who told you?

TANNER. Why, Ramsden and Tavy of course. Why should they not?

VIOLET. But they don't know.

TANNER. Don't know what?

VIOLET. They don't know that I am in the right, I mean.

TANNER. Oh, they know it in their hearts, though they think themselves
bound to blame you by their silly superstitions about morality and
propriety and so forth. But I know, and the whole world really knows,
though it dare not say so, that you were right to follow your instinct;
that vitality and bravery are the greatest qualities a woman can have,
and motherhood her solemn initiation into womanhood; and that the fact
of your not being legally married matters not one scrap either to your
own worth or to our real regard for you.

VIOLET. [flushing with indignation] Oh! You think me a wicked woman,
like the rest. You think I have not only been vile, but that I share
your abominable opinions. Miss Ramsden: I have borne your hard words
because I knew you would be sorry for them when you found out the truth.
But I won't bear such a horrible insult as to be complimented by Jack on
being one of the wretches of whom he approves. I have kept my marriage
a secret for my husband's sake. But now I claim my right as a married
woman not to be insulted.

OCTAVIUS. [raising his head with inexpressible relief] You are married!

VIOLET. Yes; and I think you might have guessed it. What business had
you all to take it for granted that I had no right to wear my wedding
ring? Not one of you even asked me: I cannot forget that.

TANNER. [in ruins] I am utterly crushed. I meant well--I
apologize--abjectly apologize.

VIOLET. I hope you will be more careful in future about the things
you say. Of course one does not take them seriously. But they are very
disagreeable, and rather in bad taste.

TANNER. [bowing to the storm] I have no defence: I shall know better in
future than to take any woman's part. We have all disgraced ourselves in
your eyes, I am afraid, except Ann, SHE befriended you. For Ann's sake,
forgive us.

VIOLET. Yes: Ann has been very kind; but then Ann knew.

TANNER. Oh!

MISS RAMSDEN. [stiffly] And who, pray, is the gentleman who does not
acknowledge his wife?

VIOLET. [promptly] That is my business, Miss Ramsden, and not yours. I
have my reasons for keeping my marriage a secret for the present.

RAMSDEN. All I can say is that we are extremely sorry, Violet. I am
shocked to think of how we have treated you.

OCTAVIUS. [awkwardly] I beg your pardon, Violet. I can say no more.

MISS RAMSDEN. [still loth to surrender] Of course what you say puts
a very different complexion on the matter. All the same, I owe it to
myself--

VIOLET. [cutting her short] You owe me an apology, Miss Ramsden: that's
what you owe both to yourself and to me. If you were a married woman you
would not like sitting in the housekeeper's room and being treated like
a naughty child by young girls and old ladies without any serious duties
and responsibilities.

TANNER. Don't hit us when we're down, Violet. We seem to have made fools
of ourselves; but really it was you who made fools of us.

VIOLET. It was no business of yours, Jack, in any case.

TANNER. No business of mine! Why, Ramsden as good as accused me of being
the unknown gentleman.

Ramsden makes a frantic demonstration; but Violet's cool keen anger
extinguishes it.

VIOLET. You! Oh, how infamous! how abominable! How disgracefully you
have all been talking about me! If my husband knew it he would never let
me speak to any of you again. [To Ramsden] I think you might have spared
me, at least.

RAMSDEN. But I assure you I never--at least it is a monstrous perversion
of something I said that--

MISS RAMSDEN. You needn't apologize, Roebuck. She brought it all on
herself. It is for her to apologize for having deceived us.

VIOLET. I can make allowances for you, Miss Ramsden: you cannot
understand how I feel on this subject though I should have expected
rather better taste from people of greater experience. However, I quite
feel that you have all placed yourselves in a very painful position;
and the most truly considerate thing for me to do is to go at once. Good
morning.

She goes, leaving them staring.

Miss RAMSDEN. Well, I must say--!

RAMSDEN. [plaintively] I don't think she is quite fair to us.

TANNER. You must cower before the wedding ring like the rest of us,
Ramsden. The cup of our ignominy is full.




ACT II

On the carriage drive in the park of a country house near Richmond a
motor car has broken down. It stands in front of a clump of trees round
which the drive sweeps to the house, which is partly visible through
them: indeed Tanner, standing in the drive with the car on his right
hand, could get an unobstructed view of the west corner of the house on
his left were he not far too much interested in a pair of supine legs
in blue serge trousers which protrude from beneath the machine. He is
watching them intently with bent back and hands supported on his knees.
His leathern overcoat and peaked cap proclaim him one of the dismounted
passengers.

THE LEGS. Aha! I got him.

TANNER. All right now?

THE LEGS. All right now.

Tanner stoops and takes the legs by the ankles, drawing their owner
forth like a wheelbarrow, walking on his hands, with a hammer in his
mouth. He is a young man in a neat suit of blue serge, clean shaven,
dark eyed, square fingered, with short well brushed black hair and
rather irregular sceptically turned eyebrows. When he is manipulating
the car his movements are swift and sudden, yet attentive and
deliberate. With Tanner and Tanner's friends his manner is not in the
least deferential, but cool and reticent, keeping them quite effectually
at a distance whilst giving them no excuse for complaining of him.
Nevertheless he has a vigilant eye on them always, and that, too, rather
cynically, like a man who knows the world well from its seamy side. He
speaks slowly and with a touch of sarcasm; and as he does not at all
affect the gentleman in his speech, it may be inferred that his smart
appearance is a mark of respect to himself and his own class, not to
that which employs him.

He now gets into the car to test his machinery and put his cap and
overcoat on again. Tanner takes off his leather overcoat and pitches
it into the car. The chauffeur (or automobilist or motoreer or whatever
England may presently decide to call him) looks round inquiringly in the
act of stowing away his hammer.

THE CHAUFFEUR. Had enough of it, eh?

TANNER. I may as well walk to the house and stretch my legs and calm my
nerves a little. [Looking at his watch] I suppose you know that we have
come from Hyde Park Corner to Richmond in twenty-one minutes.

THE CHAUFFEUR. I'd have done it under fifteen if I'd had a clear road
all the way.

TANNER. Why do you do it? Is it for love of sport or for the fun of
terrifying your unfortunate employer?

THE CHAUFFEUR. What are you afraid of?

TANNER. The police, and breaking my neck.

THE CHAUFFEUR. Well, if you like easy going, you can take a bus, you
know. It's cheaper. You pay me to save your time and give you the value
of your thousand pound car. [He sits down calmly].

TANNER. I am the slave of that car and of you too. I dream of the
accursed thing at night.

THE CHAUFFEUR. You'll get over that. If you're going up to the house,
may I ask how long you're goin to stay there? Because if you mean to
put in the whole morning talkin to the ladies, I'll put the car in the
stables and make myself comfortable. If not, I'll keep the car on the go
about here til you come.

TANNER. Better wait here. We shan't be long. There's a young American
gentleman, a Mr Malone, who is driving Mr Robinson down in his new
American steam car.

THE CHAUFFEUR. [springing up and coming hastily out of the car to
Tanner] American steam car! Wot! racin us down from London!

TANNER. Perhaps they're here already.

THE CHAUFFEUR. If I'd known it! [with deep reproach] Why didn't you tell
me, Mr Tanner?

TANNER. Because I've been told that this car is capable of 84 miles an
hour; and I already know what YOU are capable of when there is a rival
car on the road. No, Henry: there are things it is not good for you to
know; and this was one of them. However, cheer up: we are going to have
a day after your own heart. The American is to take Mr Robinson and his
sister and Miss Whitefield. We are to take Miss Rhoda.

THE CHAUFFEUR. [consoled, and musing on another matter] That's Miss
Whitefield's sister, isn't it?

TANNER. Yes.

THE CHAUFFEUR. And Miss Whitefield herself is goin in the other car? Not
with you?

TANNER. Why the devil should she come with me? Mr Robinson will be in
the other car. [The Chauffeur looks at Tanner with cool incredulity, and
turns to the car, whistling a popular air softly to himself. Tanner,
a little annoyed, is about to pursue the subject when he hears the
footsteps of Octavius on the gravel. Octavius is coming from the house,
dressed for motoring, but without his overcoat]. We've lost the race,
thank Heaven: here's Mr Robinson. Well, Tavy, is the steam car a
success?