THE DEVIL. On earth there may be some truth in this, because the people
are uneducated and cannot appreciate my religion of love and beauty; but
here--

DON JUAN. Oh yes: I know. Here there is nothing but love and beauty.
Ugh! it is like sitting for all eternity at the first act of a
fashionable play, before the complications begin. Never in my worst
moments of superstitious terror on earth did I dream that Hell was so
horrible. I live, like a hairdresser, in the continual contemplation
of beauty, toying with silken tresses. I breathe an atmosphere of
sweetness, like a confectioner's shopboy. Commander: are there any
beautiful women in Heaven?

THE STATUE. None. Absolutely none. All dowdies. Not two pennorth of
jewellery among a dozen of them. They might be men of fifty.

DON JUAN. I am impatient to get there. Is the word beauty ever
mentioned; and are there any artistic people?

THE STATUE. I give you my word they won't admire a fine statue even when
it walks past them.

DON JUAN. I go.

THE DEVIL. Don Juan: shall I be frank with you?

DON JUAN. Were you not so before?

THE DEVIL. As far as I went, yes. But I will now go further, and confess
to you that men get tired of everything, of heaven no less than of hell;
and that all history is nothing but a record of the oscillations of
the world between these two extremes. An epoch is but a swing of the
pendulum; and each generation thinks the world is progressing because
it is always moving. But when you are as old as I am; when you have a
thousand times wearied of heaven, like myself and the Commander, and
a thousand times wearied of hell, as you are wearied now, you will no
longer imagine that every swing from heaven to hell is an emancipation,
every swing from hell to heaven an evolution. Where you now see reform,
progress, fulfilment of upward tendency, continual ascent by Man on
the stepping stones of his dead selves to higher things, you will
see nothing but an infinite comedy of illusion. You will discover
the profound truth of the saying of my friend Koheleth, that there is
nothing new under the sun. Vanitas vanitatum--

DON JUAN. [out of all patience] By Heaven, this is worse than your cant
about love and beauty. Clever dolt that you are, is a man no better than
a worm, or a dog than a wolf, because he gets tired of everything?
Shall he give up eating because he destroys his appetite in the act
of gratifying it? Is a field idle when it is fallow? Can the Commander
expend his hellish energy here without accumulating heavenly energy for
his next term of blessedness? Granted that the great Life Force has hit
on the device of the clockmaker's pendulum, and uses the earth for its
bob; that the history of each oscillation, which seems so novel to us
the actors, is but the history of the last oscillation repeated; nay
more, that in the unthinkable infinitude of time the sun throws off the
earth and catches it again a thousand times as a circus rider throws up
a ball, and that the total of all our epochs is but the moment between
the toss and the catch, has the colossal mechanism no purpose?

THE DEVIL. None, my friend. You think, because you have a purpose,
Nature must have one. You might as well expect it to have fingers and
toes because you have them.

DON JUAN. But I should not have them if they served no purpose. And I,
my friend, am as much a part of Nature as my own finger is a part of me.
If my finger is the organ by which I grasp the sword and the mandoline,
my brain is the organ by which Nature strives to understand itself.
My dog's brain serves only my dog's purposes; but my brain labors at a
knowledge which does nothing for me personally but make my body bitter
to me and my decay and death a calamity. Were I not possessed with a
purpose beyond my own I had better be a ploughman than a philosopher;
for the ploughman lives as long as the philosopher, eats more, sleeps
better, and rejoices in the wife of his bosom with less misgiving. This
is because the philosopher is in the grip of the Life Force. This Life
Force says to him "I have done a thousand wonderful things unconsciously
by merely willing to live and following the line of least resistance:
now I want to know myself and my destination, and choose my path; so
I have made a special brain--a philosopher's brain--to grasp this
knowledge for me as the husbandman's hand grasps the plough for me. And
this" says the Life Force to the philosopher "must thou strive to do
for me until thou diest, when I will make another brain and another
philosopher to carry on the work."

THE DEVIL. What is the use of knowing?

DON JUAN. Why, to be able to choose the line of greatest advantage
instead of yielding in the direction of the least resistance. Does a
ship sail to its destination no better than a log drifts nowhither? The
philosopher is Nature's pilot. And there you have our difference: to be
in hell is to drift: to be in heaven is to steer.

THE DEVIL. On the rocks, most likely.

DON JUAN. Pooh! which ship goes oftenest on the rocks or to the
bottom--the drifting ship or the ship with a pilot on board?

THE DEVIL. Well, well, go your way, Senor Don Juan. I prefer to be my
own master and not the tool of any blundering universal force. I know
that beauty is good to look at; that music is good to hear; that love is
good to feel; and that they are all good to think about and talk about.
I know that to be well exercised in these sensations, emotions, and
studies is to be a refined and cultivated being. Whatever they may say
of me in churches on earth, I know that it is universally admitted in
good society that the prince of Darkness is a gentleman; and that is
enough for me. As to your Life Force, which you think irresistible, it
is the most resistible thing in the world for a person of any character.
But if you are naturally vulgar and credulous, as all reformers are, it
will thrust you first into religion, where you will sprinkle water on
babies to save their souls from me; then it will drive you from religion
into science, where you will snatch the babies from the water
sprinkling and inoculate them with disease to save them from catching it
accidentally; then you will take to politics, where you will become the
catspaw of corrupt functionaries and the henchman of ambitious humbugs;
and the end will be despair and decrepitude, broken nerve and
shattered hopes, vain regrets for that worst and silliest of wastes
and sacrifices, the waste and sacrifice of the power of enjoyment: in
a word, the punishment of the fool who pursues the better before he has
secured the good.

DON JUAN. But at least I shall not be bored. The service of the Life
Force has that advantage, at all events. So fare you well, Senor Satan.

THE DEVIL. [amiably] Fare you well, Don Juan. I shall often think of our
interesting chats about things in general. I wish you every happiness:
Heaven, as I said before, suits some people. But if you should change
your mind, do not forget that the gates are always open here to the
repentant prodigal. If you feel at any time that warmth of heart,
sincere unforced affection, innocent enjoyment, and warm, breathing,
palpitating reality--

DON JUAN. Why not say flesh and blood at once, though we have left those
two greasy commonplaces behind us?

THE DEVIL. [angrily] You throw my friendly farewell back in my teeth,
then, Don Juan?

DON JUAN. By no means. But though there is much to be learnt from a
cynical devil, I really cannot stand a sentimental one. Senor Commander:
you know the way to the frontier of hell and heaven. Be good enough to
direct me.

THE STATUE. Oh, the frontier is only the difference between two ways of
looking at things. Any road will take you across it if you really want
to get there.

DON JUAN. Good. [saluting Dona Ana] Senora: your servant.

ANA. But I am going with you.

DON JUAN. I can find my own way to heaven, Ana; but I cannot find yours
[he vanishes].

ANA. How annoying!

THE STATUE. [calling after him] Bon voyage, Juan! [He wafts a final
blast of his great rolling chords after him as a parting salute. A faint
echo of the first ghostly melody comes back in acknowledgment]. Ah!
there he goes. [Puffing a long breath out through his lips] Whew! How he
does talk! They'll never stand it in heaven.

THE DEVIL. [gloomily] His going is a political defeat. I cannot keep
these Life Worshippers: they all go. This is the greatest loss I have
had since that Dutch painter went--a fellow who would paint a hag of 70
with as much enjoyment as a Venus of 20.

THE STATUE. I remember: he came to heaven. Rembrandt.

THE DEVIL. Ay, Rembrandt. There a something unnatural about these
fellows. Do not listen to their gospel, Senor Commander: it is
dangerous. Beware of the pursuit of the Superhuman: it leads to an
indiscriminate contempt for the Human. To a man, horses and dogs and
cats are mere species, outside the moral world. Well, to the Superman,
men and women are a mere species too, also outside the moral world. This
Don Juan was kind to women and courteous to men as your daughter here
was kind to her pet cats and dogs; but such kindness is a denial of the
exclusively human character of the soul.

THE STATUE. And who the deuce is the Superman?

THE DEVIL. Oh, the latest fashion among the Life Force fanatics. Did
you not meet in Heaven, among the new arrivals, that German Polish
madman--what was his name? Nietzsche?

THE STATUE. Never heard of him.

THE DEVIL. Well, he came here first, before he recovered his wits. I had
some hopes of him; but he was a confirmed Life Force worshipper. It was
he who raked up the Superman, who is as old as Prometheus; and the 20th
century will run after this newest of the old crazes when it gets tired
of the world, the flesh, and your humble servant.

THE STATUE. Superman is a good cry; and a good cry is half the battle. I
should like to see this Nietzsche.

THE DEVIL. Unfortunately he met Wagner here, and had a quarrel with him.

THE STATUE. Quite right, too. Mozart for me!

THE DEVIL. Oh, it was not about music. Wagner once drifted into Life
Force worship, and invented a Superman called Siegfried. But he came to
his senses afterwards. So when they met here, Nietzsche denounced him
as a renegade; and Wagner wrote a pamphlet to prove that Nietzsche was
a Jew; and it ended in Nietzsche's going to heaven in a huff. And a
good riddance too. And now, my friend, let us hasten to my palace and
celebrate your arrival with a grand musical service.

THE STATUE. With pleasure: you're most kind.

THE DEVIL. This way, Commander. We go down the old trap [he places
himself on the grave trap].

THE STATUE. Good. [Reflectively] All the same, the Superman is a fine
conception. There is something statuesque about it. [He places himself
on the grave trap beside The Devil. It begins to descend slowly. Red
glow from the abyss]. Ah, this reminds me of old times.

THE DEVIL. And me also.

ANA. Stop! [The trap stops].

THE DEVIL. You, Senora, cannot come this way. You will have an
apotheosis. But you will be at the palace before us.

ANA. That is not what I stopped you for. Tell me where can I find the
Superman?

THE DEVIL. He is not yet created, Senora.

THE STATUE. And never will be, probably. Let us proceed: the red fire
will make me sneeze. [They descend].

ANA. Not yet created! Then my work is not yet done. [Crossing herself
devoutly] I believe in the Life to Come. [Crying to the universe] A
father--a father for the Superman!

She vanishes into the void; and again there is nothing: all existence
seems suspended infinitely. Then, vaguely, there is a live human voice
crying somewhere. One sees, with a shock, a mountain peak showing
faintly against a lighter background. The sky has returned from afar;
and we suddenly remember where we were. The cry becomes distinct and
urgent: it says Automobile, Automobile. The complete reality comes
back with a rush: in a moment it is full morning in the Sierra; and the
brigands are scrambling to their feet and making for the road as the
goatherd runs down from the hill, warning them of the approach of
another motor. Tanner and Mendoza rise amazedly and stare at one another
with scattered wits. Straker sits up to yawn for a moment before he gets
on his feet, making it a point of honor not to show any undue interest
in the excitement of the bandits. Mendoza gives a quick look to see that
his followers are attending to the alarm; then exchanges a private word
with Tanner.

MENDOZA. Did you dream?

TANNER. Damnably. Did you?

MENDOZA. Yes. I forget what. You were in it.

TANNER. So were you. Amazing

MENDOZA. I warned you. [a shot is heard from the road]. Dolts! they will
play with that gun. [The brigands come running back scared]. Who fired
that shot? [to Duval] Was it you?

DUVAL. [breathless] I have not shoot. Dey shoot first.

ANARCHIST. I told you to begin by abolishing the State. Now we are all
lost.

THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [stampeding across the amphitheatre] Run,
everybody.

MENDOZA. [collaring him; throwing him on his back; and drawing a knife]
I stab the man who stirs. [He blocks the way. The stampede it checked].
What has happened?

THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT, A motor--

THE ANARCHIST. Three men--

DUVAL. Deux femmes--

MENDOZA. Three men and two women! Why have you not brought them here?
Are you afraid of them?

THE ROWDY ONE. [getting up] Thyve a hescort. Ow, de-ooh lut's ook it,
Mendowza.

THE SULKY ONE. Two armored cars full o soldiers at the end o the valley.

ANARCHIST. The shot was fired in the air. It was a signal.

Straker whistles his favorite air, which falls on the ears of the
brigands like a funeral march.

TANNER. It is not an escort, but an expedition to capture you. We were
advised to wait for it; but I was in a hurry.

THE ROWDY ONE. [in an agony of apprehension] And Ow my good Lord, ere we
are, wytin for em! Lut's tike to the mahntns.

MENDOZA. Idiot, what do you know about the mountains? Are you a
Spaniard? You would be given up by the first shepherd you met. Besides,
we are already within range of their rifles.

THE ROWDY ONE. Bat--

MENDOZA. Silence. Leave this to me. [To Tanner] Comrade: you will not
betray us.

STRAKER. Oo are you callin comrade?

MENDOZA. Last night the advantage was with me. The robber of the poor
was at the mercy of the robber of the rich. You offered your hand: I
took it.

TANNER. I bring no charge against you, comrade. We have spent a pleasant
evening with you: that is all.

STRAKER. I gev my and to nobody, see?

MENDOZA. [turning on him impressively] Young man, if I am tried, I shall
plead guilty, and explain what drove me from England, home and duty. Do
you wish to have the respectable name of Straker dragged through the mud
of a Spanish criminal court? The police will search me. They will find
Louisa's portrait. It will be published in the illustrated papers. You
blench. It will be your doing, remember.

STRAKER. [with baffled rage] I don't care about the court. It's avin our
name mixed up with yours that I object to, you blackmailin swine, you.

MENDOZA. Language unworthy of Louisa's brother! But no matter: you are
muzzled: that is enough for us. [He turns to face his own men, who back
uneasily across the amphitheatre towards the cave to take refuge behind
him, as a fresh party, muffled for motoring, comes from the road in
riotous spirits. Ann, who makes straight for Tanner, comes first; then
Violet, helped over the rough ground by Hector holding her right hand
and Ramsden her left. Mendoza goes to his presidential block and seats
himself calmly with his rank and file grouped behind him, and his
Staff, consisting of Duval and the Anarchist on his right and the two
Social-Democrats on his left, supporting him in flank].

ANN. It's Jack!

TANNER. Caught!

HECTOR. Why, certainly it is. I said it was you, Tanner, We've just been
stopped by a puncture: the road is full of nails.

VIOLET. What are you doing here with all these men?

ANN. Why did you leave us without a word of warning?

HECTOR. I want that bunch of roses, Miss Whitefield. [To Tanner] When
we found you were gone, Miss Whitefield bet me a bunch of roses my car
would not overtake yours before you reached Monte Carlo.

TANNER. But this is not the road to Monte Carlo.

HECTOR. No matter. Miss Whitefield tracked you at every stopping place:
she is a regular Sherlock Holmes.

TANNER. The Life Force! I am lost.

OCTAVIUS. [Bounding gaily down from the road into the amphitheatre, and
coming between Tanner and Straker] I am so glad you are safe, old chap.
We were afraid you had been captured by brigands.

RAMSDEN. [who has been staring at Mendoza] I seem to remember the face
of your friend here. [Mendoza rises politely and advances with a smile
between Ann and Ramsden].

HECTOR. Why, so do I.

OCTAVIUS. I know you perfectly well, Sir; but I can't think where I have
met you.

MENDOZA. [to Violet] Do YOU remember me, madam?

VIOLET. Oh, quite well; but I am so stupid about names.

MENDOZA. It was at the Savoy Hotel. [To Hector] You, sir, used to come
with this lady [Violet] to lunch. [To Octavius] You, sir, often brought
this lady [Ann] and her mother to dinner on your way to the Lyceum
Theatre. [To Ramsden] You, sir, used to come to supper, with [dropping
his voice to a confidential but perfectly audible whisper] several
different ladies.

RAMSDEN. [angrily] Well, what is that to you, pray?

OCTAVIUS. Why, Violet, I thought you hardly knew one another before this
trip, you and Malone!

VIOLET. [vexed] I suppose this person was the manager.

MENDOZA. The waiter, madam. I have a grateful recollection of you all.
I gathered from the bountiful way in which you treated me that you all
enjoyed your visits very much.

VIOLET. What impertinence! [She turns her back on him, and goes up the
hill with Hector].

RAMSDEN. That will do, my friend. You do not expect these ladies to
treat you as an acquaintance, I suppose, because you have waited on them
at table.

MENDOZA. Pardon me: it was you who claimed my acquaintance. The ladies
followed your example. However, this display of the unfortunate manners
of your class closes the incident. For the future, you will please
address me with the respect due to a stranger and fellow traveller. [He
turns haughtily away and resumes his presidential seat].

TANNER. There! I have found one man on my journey capable of reasonable
conversation; and you all instinctively insult him. Even the New Man
is as bad as any of you. Enry: you have behaved just like a miserable
gentleman.

STRAKER. Gentleman! Not me.

RAMSDEN. Really, Tanner, this tone--

ANN. Don't mind him, Granny: you ought to know him by this time [she
takes his arm and coaxes him away to the hill to join Violet and Hector.
Octavius follows her, doglike].

VIOLET. [calling from the hill] Here are the soldiers. They are getting
out of their motors.

DUVAL. [panicstricken] Oh, nom de Dieu!

THE ANARCHIST. Fools: the State is about to crush you because you spared
it at the prompting of the political hangers-on of the bourgeoisie.

THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [argumentative to the last] On the contrary,
only by capturing the State machine--

THE ANARCHIST. It is going to capture you.

THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [his anguish culminating] Ow, chock it. Wot
are we ere for? WOT are we wytin for?

MENDOZA. [between his teeth] Goon. Talk politics, you idiots: nothing
sounds more respectable. Keep it up, I tell you.

The soldiers line the road, commanding the amphitheatre with their
rifles. The brigands, struggling with an over-whelming impulse to hide
behind one another, look as unconcerned as they can. Mendoza rises
superbly, with undaunted front. The officer in command steps down from
the road in to the amphitheatre; looks hard at the brigands; and then
inquiringly at Tanner.

THE OFFICER. Who are these men, Senor Ingles?

TANNER. My escort.

Mendoza, with a Mephistophelean smile, bows profoundly. An irrepressible
grin runs from face to face among the brigands. They touch their hats,
except the Anarchist, who defies the State with folded arms.




ACT IV

The garden of a villa in Granada. Whoever wishes to know what it is like
must go to Granada and see. One may prosaically specify a group of hills
dotted with villas, the Alhambra on the top of one of the hills, and
a considerable town in the valley, approached by dusty white roads in
which the children, no matter what they are doing or thinking about,
automatically whine for halfpence and reach out little clutching brown
palms for them; but there is nothing in this description except the
Alhambra, the begging, and the color of the roads, that does not fit
Surrey as well as Spain. The difference is that the Surrey hills are
comparatively small and ugly, and should properly be called the Surrey
Protuberances; but these Spanish hills are of mountain stock: the
amenity which conceals their size does not compromise their dignity.

This particular garden is on a hill opposite the Alhambra; and the villa
is as expensive and pretentious as a villa must be if it is to be let
furnished by the week to opulent American and English visitors. If we
stand on the lawn at the foot of the garden and look uphill, our horizon
is the stone balustrade of a flagged platform on the edge of infinite
space at the top of the hill. Between us and this platform is a flower
garden with a circular basin and fountain in the centre, surrounded
by geometrical flower beds, gravel paths, and clipped yew trees in the
genteelest order. The garden is higher than our lawn; so we reach it
by a few steps in the middle of its embankment. The platform is higher
again than the garden, from which we mount a couple more steps to look
over the balustrade at a fine view of the town up the valley and of the
hills that stretch away beyond it to where, in the remotest distance,
they become mountains. On our left is the villa, accessible by steps
from the left hand corner of the garden. Returning from the platform
through the garden and down again to the lawn (a movement which leaves
the villa behind us on our right) we find evidence of literary interests
on the part of the tenants in the fact that there is no tennis net nor
set of croquet hoops, but, on our left, a little iron garden table with
books on it, mostly yellow-backed, and a chair beside it. A chair on the
right has also a couple of open books upon it. There are no newspapers,
a circumstance which, with the absence of games, might lead an
intelligent spectator to the most far reaching conclusions as to the
sort of people who live in the villa. Such speculations are checked,
however, on this delightfully fine afternoon, by the appearance at
a little gate in a paling an our left, of Henry Straker in his
professional costume. He opens the gate for an elderly gentleman, and
follows him on to the lawn.

This elderly gentleman defies the Spanish sun in a black frock coat,
tall silk bat, trousers in which narrow stripes of dark grey and lilac
blend into a highly respectable color, and a black necktie tied into a
bow over spotless linen. Probably therefore a man whose social position
needs constant and scrupulous affirmation without regard to climate:
one who would dress thus for the middle of the Sahara or the top of Mont
Blanc. And since he has not the stamp of the class which accepts as its
life-mission the advertizing and maintenance of first rate tailoring and
millinery, he looks vulgar in his finery, though in a working dress of
any kind he would look dignified enough. He is a bullet cheeked man with
a red complexion, stubbly hair, smallish eyes, a hard mouth that folds
down at the corners, and a dogged chin. The looseness of skin that comes
with age has attacked his throat and the laps of his cheeks; but he is
still hard as an apple above the mouth; so that the upper half of his
face looks younger than the lower. He has the self-confidence of one who
has made money, and something of the truculence of one who has made it
in a brutalizing struggle, his civility having under it a perceptible
menace that he has other methods in reserve if necessary. Withal, a man
to be rather pitied when he is not to be feared; for there is something
pathetic about him at times, as if the huge commercial machine which has
worked him into his frock coat had allowed him very little of his own
way and left his affections hungry and baffled. At the first word
that falls from him it is clear that he is an Irishman whose native
intonation has clung to him through many changes of place and rank. One
can only guess that the original material of his speech was perhaps the
surly Kerry brogue; but the degradation of speech that occurs in London,
Glasgow, Dublin and big cities generally has been at work on it so long
that nobody but an arrant cockney would dream of calling it a brogue
now; for its music is almost gone, though its surliness is still
perceptible. Straker, as a very obvious cockney, inspires him with
implacable contempt, as a stupid Englishman who cannot even speak his
own language properly. Straker, on the other hand, regards the old
gentleman's accent as a joke thoughtfully provided by Providence
expressly for the amusement of the British race, and treats him
normally with the indulgence due to an inferior and unlucky species, but
occasionally with indignant alarm when the old gentleman shows signs of
intending his Irish nonsense to be taken seriously.

STRAKER. I'll go tell the young lady. She said you'd prefer to stay here
[he turns to go up through the garden to the villa].

MALONE. [who has been looking round him with lively curiosity] The young
lady? That's Miss Violet, eh?

STRAKER. [stopping on the steps with sudden suspicion] Well, you know,
don't you?

MALONE. Do I?

STRAKER. [his temper rising] Well, do you or don't you?

MALONE. What business is that of yours?

Straker, now highly indignant, comes back from the steps and confronts
the visitor.

STRAKER. I'll tell you what business it is of mine. Miss Robinson--

MALONE. [interrupting] Oh, her name is Robinson, is it? Thank you.

STRAKER. Why, you don't know even her name?

MALONE. Yes I do, now that you've told me.

STRAKER. [after a moment of stupefaction at the old man's readiness in
repartee] Look here: what do you mean by gittin into my car and lettin
me bring you here if you're not the person I took that note to?

MALONE. Who else did you take it to, pray?

STRAKER. I took it to Mr Ector Malone, at Miss Robinson's request, see?
Miss Robinson is not my principal: I took it to oblige her. I know Mr
Malone; and he ain't you, not by a long chalk. At the hotel they told me
that your name is Ector Malone.

MALONE. Hector Malone.

STRAKER. [with calm superiority] Hector in your own country: that's what
comes o livin in provincial places like Ireland and America. Over here
you're Ector: if you avn't noticed it before you soon will.

The growing strain of the conversation is here relieved by Violet, who
has sallied from the villa and through the garden to the steps, which
she now descends, coming very opportunely between Malone and Straker.

VIOLET. [to Straker] Did you take my message?

STRAKER. Yes, miss. I took it to the hotel and sent it up, expecting to
see young Mr Malone. Then out walks this gent, and says it's all right
and he'll come with me. So as the hotel people said he was Mr Ector
Malone, I fetched him. And now he goes back on what he said. But if he
isn't the gentleman you meant, say the word: it's easy enough to fetch
him back again.

MALONE. I should esteem it a great favor if I might have a short
conversation with you, madam. I am Hector's father, as this bright
Britisher would have guessed in the course of another hour or so.

STRAKER. [coolly defiant] No, not in another year or so. When we've ad
you as long to polish up as we've ad im, perhaps you'll begin to look a
little bit up to is mark. At present you fall a long way short. You've
got too many aitches, for one thing. [To Violet, amiably] All right,
Miss: you want to talk to him: I shan't intrude. [He nods affably to
Malone and goes out through the little gate in the paling].

VIOLET. [very civilly] I am so sorry, Mr Malone, if that man has been
rude to you. But what can we do? He is our chauffeur.

MALONE. Your what?

VIOLET. The driver of our automobile. He can drive a motor car at
seventy miles an hour, and mend it when it breaks down. We are dependent
on our motor cars; and our motor cars are dependent on him; so of course
we are dependent on him.

MALONE. I've noticed, madam, that every thousand dollars an Englishman
gets seems to add one to the number of people he's dependent on.
However, you needn't apologize for your man: I made him talk on purpose.
By doing so I learnt that you're staying here in Grannida with a party
of English, including my son Hector.

VIOLET. [conversationally] Yes. We intended to go to Nice; but we had to
follow a rather eccentric member of our party who started first and came
here. Won't you sit down? [She clears the nearest chair of the two books
on it].

MALONE. [impressed by this attention] Thank you. [He sits down,
examining her curiously as she goes to the iron table to put down the
books. When she turns to him again, he says] Miss Robinson, I believe?

VIOLET. [sitting down] Yes.

MALONE. [Taking a letter from his pocket] Your note to Hector runs as
follows [Violet is unable to repress a start. He pauses quietly to take
out and put on his spectacles, which have gold rims]: "Dearest: they
have all gone to the Alhambra for the afternoon. I have shammed headache
and have the garden all to myself. Jump into Jack's motor: Straker will
rattle you here in a jiffy. Quick, quick, quick. Your loving Violet."
[He looks at her; but by this time she has recovered herself, and meets
his spectacles with perfect composure. He continues slowly] Now I don't
know on what terms young people associate in English society; but in
America that note would be considered to imply a very considerable
degree of affectionate intimacy between the parties.

VIOLET. Yes: I know your son very well, Mr Malone. Have you any
objection?

MALONE. [somewhat taken aback] No, no objection exactly. Provided it is
understood that my son is altogether dependent on me, and that I have to
be consulted in any important step he may propose to take.

VIOLET. I am sure you would not be unreasonable with him, Mr Malone.

MALONE. I hope not, Miss Robinson; but at your age you might think many
things unreasonable that don't seem so to me.

VIOLET. [with a little shrug] Oh well, I suppose there's no use our
playing at cross purposes, Mr Malone. Hector wants to marry me.

MALONE. I inferred from your note that he might. Well, Miss Robinson,
he is his own master; but if he marries you he shall not have a rap from
me. [He takes off his spectacles and pockets them with the note].

VIOLET. [with some severity] That is not very complimentary to me, Mr
Malone.

MALONE. I say nothing against you, Miss Robinson: I daresay you are an
amiable and excellent young lady. But I have other views for Hector.

VIOLET. Hector may not have other views for himself, Mr Malone.

MALONE. Possibly not. Then he does without me: that's all. I daresay you
are prepared for that. When a young lady writes to a young man to
come to her quick, quick, quick, money seems nothing and love seems
everything.

VIOLET. [sharply] I beg your pardon, Mr Malone: I do not think anything
so foolish. Hector must have money.

MALONE. [staggered] Oh, very well, very well. No doubt he can work for
it.

VIOLET. What is the use of having money if you have to work for it? [She
rises impatiently]. It's all nonsense, Mr Malone: you must enable your
son to keep up his position. It is his right.

MALONE. [grimly] I should not advise you to marry him on the strength of
that right, Miss Robinson.

Violet, who has almost lost her temper, controls herself with an effort;
unclenches her fingers; and resumes her seat with studied tranquillity
and reasonableness.

VIOLET. What objection have you to me, pray? My social position is as
good as Hector's, to say the least. He admits it.

MALONE. [shrewdly] You tell him so from time to time, eh? Hector's
social position in England, Miss Robinson, is just what I choose to
buy for him. I have made him a fair offer. Let him pick out the most
historic house, castle or abbey that England contains. The day that he
tells me he wants it for a wife worthy of its traditions, I buy it for
him, and give him the means of keeping it up.

VIOLET. What do you mean by a wife worthy of its traditions? Cannot any
well bred woman keep such a house for him?

MALONE. No: she must be born to it.

VIOLET. Hector was not born to it, was he?

MALONE. His granmother was a barefooted Irish girl that nursed me by a
turf fire. Let him marry another such, and I will not stint her marriage
portion. Let him raise himself socially with my money or raise somebody
else so long as there is a social profit somewhere, I'll regard my
expenditure as justified. But there must be a profit for someone. A
marriage with you would leave things just where they are.

VIOLET. Many of my relations would object very much to my marrying the
grandson of a common woman, Mr Malone. That may be prejudice; but so is
your desire to have him marry a title prejudice.

MALONE. [rising, and approaching her with a scrutiny in which there is
a good deal of reluctant respect] You seem a pretty straightforward
downright sort of a young woman.

VIOLET. I do not see why I should be made miserably poor because I
cannot make profits for you. Why do you want to make Hector unhappy?

MALONE. He will get over it all right enough. Men thrive better on
disappointments in love than on disappointments in money. I daresay you
think that sordid; but I know what I'm talking about. My father died of
starvation in Ireland in the black 47, Maybe you've heard of it.

VIOLET. The Famine?

MALONE. [with smouldering passion] No, the starvation. When a country
is full of food, and exporting it, there can be no famine. My father
was starved dead; and I was starved out to America in my mother's
arms. English rule drove me and mine out of Ireland. Well, you can keep
Ireland. I and my like are coming back to buy England; and we'll buy the
best of it. I want no middle class properties and no middle class women
for Hector. That's straightforward isn't it, like yourself?

VIOLET. [icily pitying his sentimentality] Really, Mr Malone, I am
astonished to hear a man of your age and good sense talking in that
romantic way. Do you suppose English noblemen will sell their places to
you for the asking?

MALONE. I have the refusal of two of the oldest family mansions in
England. One historic owner can't afford to keep all the rooms dusted:
the other can't afford the death duties. What do you say now?

VIOLET. Of course it is very scandalous; but surely you know that the
Government will sooner or later put a stop to all these Socialistic
attacks on property.

MALONE. [grinning] D'y' think they'll be able to get that done before I
buy the house--or rather the abbey? They're both abbeys.

VIOLET. [putting that aside rather impatiently] Oh, well, let us talk
sense, Mr Malone. You must feel that we haven't been talking sense so
far.

MALONE. I can't say I do. I mean all I say.

VIOLET. Then you don't know Hector as I do. He is romantic and faddy--he
gets it from you, I fancy--and he wants a certain sort of wife to take
care of him. Not a faddy sort of person, you know.

MALONE. Somebody like you, perhaps?

VIOLET. [quietly] Well, yes. But you cannot very well ask me to
undertake this with absolutely no means of keeping up his position.

MALONE. [alarmed] Stop a bit, stop a bit. Where are we getting to? I'm
not aware that I'm asking you to undertake anything.

VIOLET. Of course, Mr Malone, you can make it very difficult for me to
speak to you if you choose to misunderstand me.

MALONE. [half bewildered] I don't wish to take any unfair advantage; but
we seem to have got off the straight track somehow.

Straker, with the air of a man who has been making haste, opens the
little gate, and admits Hector, who, snorting with indignation, comes
upon the lawn, and is making for his father when Violet, greatly
dismayed, springs up and intercepts him. Straker doer not wait; at least
he does not remain visibly within earshot.

VIOLET. Oh, how unlucky! Now please, Hector, say nothing. Go away until
I have finished speaking to your father.

HECTOR. [inexorably] No, Violet: I mean to have this thing out, right
away. [He puts her aside; passes her by; and faces his father, whose
cheeks darken as his Irish blood begins to simmer]. Dad: you've not
played this hand straight.

MALONE. Hwat d'y'mean?

HECTOR. You've opened a letter addressed to me. You've impersonated me
and stolen a march on this lady. That's dishonorable.

MALONE. [threateningly] Now you take care what you're saying, Hector.
Take care, I tell you.

HECTOR. I have taken care. I am taking care. I'm taking care of my honor
and my position in English society.

MALONE. [hotly] Your position has been got by my money: do you know
that?

HECTOR. Well, you've just spoiled it all by opening that letter. A
letter from an English lady, not addressed to you--a confidential
letter! a delicate letter! a private letter opened by my father! That's
a sort of thing a man can't struggle against in England. The sooner
we go back together the better. [He appeals mutely to the heavens to
witness the shame and anguish of two outcasts].

VIOLET. [snubbing him with an instinctive dislike for scene making]
Don't be unreasonable, Hector. It was quite natural of Mr Malone to open
my letter: his name was on the envelope.

MALONE. There! You've no common sense, Hector. I thank you, Miss
Robinson.

HECTOR. I thank you, too. It's very kind of you. My father knows no
better.

MALONE. [furiously clenching his fists] Hector--

HECTOR. [with undaunted moral force] Oh, it's no use hectoring me. A
private letter's a private letter, dad: you can't get over that.

MALONE [raising his voice] I won't be talked back to by you, d'y' hear?

VIOLET. Ssh! please, please. Here they all come.

Father and son, checked, glare mutely at one another as Tanner comes in
through the little gate with Ramsden, followed by Octavius and Ann.

VIOLET. Back already!

TANNER. The Alhambra is not open this afternoon.

VIOLET. What a sell!

Tanner passes on, and presently finds himself between Hector and a
strange elder, both apparently on the verge of personal combat. He looks
from one to the other for an explanation. They sulkily avoid his eye,
and nurse their wrath in silence.

RAMSDEN. Is it wise for you to be out in the sunshine with such a
headache, Violet?

TANNER. Have you recovered too, Malone?

VIOLET. Oh, I forgot. We have not all met before. Mr Malone: won't you
introduce your father?

HECTOR. [with Roman firmness] No, I will not. He is no father of mine.

MALONE. [very angry] You disown your dad before your English friends, do
you?

VIOLET. Oh please don't make a scene.

Ann and Octavius, lingering near the gate, exchange an astonished
glance, and discreetly withdraw up the steps to the garden, where they
can enjoy the disturbance without intruding. On their way to the steps
Ann sends a little grimace of mute sympathy to Violet, who is standing
with her back to the little table, looking on in helpless annoyance as
her husband soars to higher and higher moral eminences without the least
regard to the old man's millions.

HECTOR. I'm very sorry, Miss Robinson; but I'm contending for a
principle. I am a son, and, I hope, a dutiful one; but before everything
I'm a Man!!! And when dad treats my private letters as his own, and
takes it on himself to say that I shan't marry you if I am happy and
fortunate enough to gain your consent, then I just snap my fingers and
go my own way.

TANNER. Marry Violet!

RAMSDEN. Are you in your senses?

TANNER. Do you forget what we told you?

HECTOR. [recklessly] I don't care what you told me.

RAMSDEN. [scandalized] Tut tut, sir! Monstrous! [he flings away towards
the gate, his elbows quivering with indignation]

TANNER. Another madman! These men in love should be locked up. [He gives
Hector up as hopeless, and turns away towards the garden, but Malone,
taking offence in a new direction, follows him and compels him, by the
aggressivenes of his tone, to stop].

MALONE. I don't understand this. Is Hector not good enough for this
lady, pray?

TANNER. My dear sir, the lady is married already. Hector knows it; and
yet he persists in his infatuation. Take him home and lock him up.

MALONE. [bitterly] So this is the high-born social tone I've spoilt by
my ignorant, uncultivated behavior! Makin love to a married woman! [He
comes angrily between Hector and Violet, and almost bawls into Hector's
left ear] You've picked up that habit of the British aristocracy, have
you?

HECTOR. That's all right. Don't you trouble yourself about that. I'll
answer for the morality of what I'm doing.

TANNER. [coming forward to Hector's right hand with flashing eyes] Well
said, Malone! You also see that mere marriage laws are not morality! I
agree with you; but unfortunately Violet does not.

MALONE. I take leave to doubt that, sir. [Turning on Violet] Let me tell
you, Mrs Robinson, or whatever your right name is, you had no right to
send that letter to my son when you were the wife of another man.

HECTOR. [outraged] This is the last straw. Dad: you have insulted my
wife.

MALONE. YOUR wife!

TANNER. YOU the missing husband! Another moral impostor! [He smites his
brow, and collapses into Malone's chair].

MALONE. You've married without my consent!

RAMSDEN. You have deliberately humbugged us, sir!

HECTOR. Here: I have had just about enough of being badgered. Violet and
I are married: that's the long and the short of it. Now what have you
got to say--any of you?

MALONE. I know what I've got to say. She's married a beggar.

HECTOR. No; she's married a Worker [his American pronunciation imparts
an overwhelming intensity to this simple and unpopular word]. I start to
earn my own living this very afternoon.

MALONE. [sneering angrily] Yes: you're very plucky now, because you got
your remittance from me yesterday or this morning, I reckon. Wait til
it's spent. You won't be so full of cheek then.

HECTOR. [producing a letter from his pocketbook] Here it is [thrusting
it on his father]. Now you just take your remittance and yourself out of
my life. I'm done with remittances; and I'm done with you. I don't sell
the privilege of insulting my wife for a thousand dollars.

MALONE. [deeply wounded and full of concern] Hector: you don't know what
poverty is.

HECTOR. [fervidly] Well, I want to know what it is. I want'be a Man.
Violet: you come along with me, to your own home: I'll see you through.

OCTAVIUS. [jumping down from the garden to the lawn and running to
Hector's left hand] I hope you'll shake hands with me before you go,
Hector. I admire and respect you more than I can say. [He is affected
almost to tears as they shake hands].

VIOLET. [also almost in tears, but of vexation] Oh don't be an idiot,
Tavy. Hector's about as fit to become a workman as you are.

TANNER. [rising from his chair on the other ride of Hector] Never fear:
there's no question of his becoming a navvy, Mrs Malone. [To Hector]
There's really no difficulty about capital to start with. Treat me as a
friend: draw on me.

OCTAVIUS. [impulsively] Or on me.

MALONE. [with fierce jealousy] Who wants your dirty money? Who should he
draw on but his own father? [Tanner and Octavius recoil, Octavius rather
hurt, Tanner consoled by the solution of the money difficulty. Violet
looks up hopefully]. Hector: don't be rash, my boy. I'm sorry for what I
said: I never meant to insult Violet: I take it all back. She's just the
wife you want: there!

HECTOR. [Patting him on the shoulder] Well, that's all right, dad. Say
no more: we're friends again. Only, I take no money from anybody.

MALONE. [pleading abjectly] Don't be hard on me, Hector. I'd rather you
quarrelled and took the money than made friends and starved. You don't
know what the world is: I do.

HECTOR. No, no, NO. That's fixed: that's not going to change. [He passes
his father inexorably by, and goes to Violet]. Come, Mrs Malone: you've
got to move to the hotel with me, and take your proper place before the
world.

VIOLET. But I must go in, dear, and tell Davis to pack. Won't you go on
and make them give you a room overlooking the garden for me? I'll join
you in half an hour.

HECTOR. Very well. You'll dine with us, Dad, won't you?

MALONE. [eager to conciliate him] Yes, yes.

HECTOR. See you all later. [He waves his hand to Ann, who has now been
joined by Tanner, Octavius, and Ramsden in the garden, and goes out
through the little gate, leaving his father and Violet together on the
lawn].

MALONE. You'll try to bring him to his senses, Violet: I know you will.

VIOLET. I had no idea he could be so headstrong. If he goes on like
that, what can I do?

MALONE. Don't be discurridged: domestic pressure may be slow; but it's
sure. You'll wear him down. Promise me you will.

VIOLET. I will do my best. Of course I think it's the greatest nonsense
deliberately making us poor like that.

MALONE. Of course it is.

VIOLET. [after a moment's reflection] You had better give me the
remittance. He will want it for his hotel bill. I'll see whether I can
induce him to accept it. Not now, of course, but presently.

MALONE. [eagerly] Yes, yes, yes: that's just the thing [he hands her the
thousand dollar bill, and adds cunningly] Y'understand that this is only
a bachelor allowance.

VIOLET. [Coolly] Oh, quite. [She takes it]. Thank you. By the way, Mr
Malone, those two houses you mentioned--the abbeys.

MALONE. Yes?

VIOLET. Don't take one of them until I've seen it. One never knows what
may be wrong with these places.

MALONE. I won't. I'll do nothing without consulting you, never fear.

VIOLET. [politely, but without a ray of gratitude] Thanks: that will
be much the best way. [She goes calmly back to the villa, escorted
obsequiously by Malone to the upper end of the garden].

TANNER. [drawing Ramsden's attention to Malone's cringing attitude as he
takes leave of Violet] And that poor devil is a billionaire! one of the
master spirits of the age! Led on a string like a pug dog by the first
girl who takes the trouble to despise him. I wonder will it ever come to
that with me. [He comes down to the lawn.]

RAMSDEN. [following him] The sooner the better for you.

MALONE. [clapping his hands as he returns through the garden] That'll be
a grand woman for Hector. I wouldn't exchange her for ten duchesses. [He
descends to the lawn and comes between Tanner and Ramsden].

RAMSDEN. [very civil to the billionaire] It's an unexpected pleasure to
find you in this corner of the world, Mr Malone. Have you come to buy up
the Alhambra?

MALONE. Well, I don't say I mightn't. I think I could do better with it
than the Spanish government. But that's not what I came about. To tell
you the truth, about a month ago I overheard a deal between two men over
a bundle of shares. They differed about the price: they were young and
greedy, and didn't know that if the shares were worth what was bid for
them they must be worth what was asked, the margin being too small to
be of any account, you see. To amuse meself, I cut in and bought the
shares. Well, to this day I haven't found out what the business is. The
office is in this town; and the name is Mendoza, Limited. Now whether
Mendoza's a mine, or a steamboat line, or a bank, or a patent article--

TANNER. He's a man. I know him: his principles are thoroughly
commercial. Let us take you round the town in our motor, Mr Malone, and
call on him on the way.

MALONE. If you'll be so kind, yes. And may I ask who--

TANNER. Mr Roebuck Ramsden, a very old friend of your daughter-in-law.

MALONE. Happy to meet you, Mr Ramsden.

RAMSDEN. Thank you. Mr Tanner is also one of our circle.

MALONE. Glad to know you also, Mr Tanner.

TANNER. Thanks. [Malone and Ramsden go out very amicably through the
little gate. Tanner calls to Octavius, who is wandering in the garden
with Ann] Tavy! [Tavy comes to the steps, Tanner whispers loudly to
him] Violet has married a financier of brigands. [Tanner hurries away
to overtake Malone and Ramsden. Ann strolls to the steps with an idle
impulse to torment Octavius].

ANN. Won't you go with them, Tavy?

OCTAVIUS. [tears suddenly flushing his eyes] You cut me to the heart,
Ann, by wanting me to go [he comes down on the lawn to hide his face
from her. She follows him caressingly].

ANN. Poor Ricky Ticky Tavy! Poor heart!

OCTAVIUS. It belongs to you, Ann. Forgive me: I must speak of it. I love
you. You know I love you.

ANN. What's the good, Tavy? You know that my mother is determined that I
shall marry Jack.

OCTAVIUS. [amazed] Jack!

ANN. It seems absurd, doesn't it?

OCTAVIUS. [with growing resentment] Do you mean to say that Jack has
been playing with me all this time? That he has been urging me not to
marry you because he intends to marry you himself?

ANN. [alarmed] No no: you mustn't lead him to believe that I said that:
I don't for a moment think that Jack knows his own mind. But it's clear
from my father's will that he wished me to marry Jack. And my mother is
set on it.

OCTAVIUS. But you are not bound to sacrifice yourself always to the
wishes of your parents.

ANN. My father loved me. My mother loves me. Surely their wishes are a
better guide than my own selfishness.

OCTAVIUS. Oh, I know how unselfish you are, Ann. But believe me--though
I know I am speaking in my own interest--there is another side to this
question. Is it fair to Jack to marry him if you do not love him? Is
it fair to destroy my happiness as well as your own if you can bring
yourself to love me?

ANN. [looking at him with a faint impulse of pity] Tavy, my dear, you
are a nice creature--a good boy.