The Essential Plays of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated Edition). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

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      MORELL (with quaint desperation, clutching himself by the hair). Eugene: my head is spinning round. I shall begin to laugh presently. (He walks up and down the middle of the room.)

      MARCHBANKS (following him anxiously). No, no: she’ll think I’ve thrown you into hysterics. Don’t laugh. (Boisterous voices and laughter are heard approaching. Lexy Mill, his eyes sparkling, and his bearing denoting unwonted elevation of spirit, enters with Burgess, who is greasy and self-complacent, but has all his wits about him. Miss Garnett, with her smartest hat and jacket on, follows them; but though her eyes are brighter than before, she is evidently a prey to misgiving. She places herself with her back to her typewriting table, with one hand on it to rest herself, passes the other across her forehead as if she were a little tired and giddy. Marchbanks relapses into shyness and edges away into the corner near the window, where Morell’s books are.)

      MILL (exhilaratedly). Morell: I MUST congratulate you. (Grasping his hand.) What a noble, splendid, inspired address you gave us! You surpassed yourself.

      BURGESS. So you did, James. It fair kep’ me awake to the last word. Didn’t it, Miss Garnett?

      PROSERPINE (worriedly). Oh, I wasn’t minding you: I was trying to make notes. (She takes out her notebook, and looks at her stenography, which nearly makes her cry.)

      MORELL. Did I go too fast, Pross?

      PROSERPINE. Much too fast. You know I can’t do more than a hundred words a minute. (She relieves her feelings by throwing her notebook angrily beside her machine, ready for use next morning.)

      MORELL (soothingly). Oh, well, well, never mind, never mind, never mind. Have you all had supper?

      LEXY. Mr. Burgess has been kind enough to give us a really splendid supper at the Belgrave.

      BURGESS (with effusive magnanimity). Don’t mention it, Mr. Mill. (Modestly.) You’re ‘arty welcome to my little treat.

      PROSERPINE. We had champagne! I never tasted it before. I feel quite giddy.

      MORELL (surprised). A champagne supper! That was very handsome. Was it my eloquence that produced all this extravagance?

      MILL (rhetorically). Your eloquence, and Mr. Burgess’s goodness of heart. (With a fresh burst of exhilaration.) And what a very fine fellow the chairman is, Morell! He came to supper with us.

      MORELL (with long drawn significance, looking at Burgess). O-o-o-h, the chairman. NOW I understand.

      (Burgess, covering a lively satisfaction in his diplomatic cunning with a deprecatory cough, retires to the hearth. Lexy folds his arms and leans against the cellaret in a high-spirited attitude. Candida comes in with glasses, lemons, and a jug of hot water on a tray.)

      CANDIDA. Who will have some lemonade? You know our rules: total abstinence. (She puts the tray on the table, and takes up the lemon squeezers, looking enquiringly round at them.)

      MORELL. No use, dear. They’ve all had champagne. Pross has broken her pledge.

      CANDIDA (to Proserpine). You don’t mean to say you’ve been drinking champagne!

      PROSERPINE (stubbornly). Yes, I do. I’m only a beer teetotaller, not a champagne teetotaller. I don’t like beer. Are there any letters for me to answer, Mr. Morell?

      MORELL. No more tonight.

      PROSERPINE. Very well. Goodnight, everybody.

      LEXY (gallantly). Had I not better see you home, Miss Garnett?

      PROSERPINE. No, thank you. I shan’t trust myself with anybody tonight. I wish I hadn’t taken any of that stuff. (She walks straight out.)

      BURGESS (indignantly). Stuff, indeed! That gurl dunno wot champagne is! Pommery and Greeno at twelve and six a bottle. She took two glasses a’most straight hoff.

      MORELL (a little anxious about her). Go and look after her, Lexy.

      LEXY (alarmed). But if she should really be — Suppose she began to sing in the street, or anything of that sort.

      MORELL. Just so: she may. That’s why you’d better see her safely home.

      CANDIDA. Do, Lexy: there’s a good fellow. (She shakes his hand and pushes him gently to the door.)

      LEXY. It’s evidently my duty to go. I hope it may not be necessary. Goodnight, Mrs. Morell. (To the rest.) Goodnight. (He goes. Candida shuts the door.)

      BURGESS. He was gushin’ with hextra piety hisself arter two sips. People carn’t drink like they huseter. (Dismissing the subject and bustling away from the hearth.) Well, James: it’s time to lock up. Mr. Morchbanks: shall I ‘ave the pleasure of your company for a bit of the way home?

      MARCHBANKS (affrightedly). Yes: I’d better go. .(He hurries across to the door; but Candida places herself before it, barring his way.)

      CANDIDA (with quiet authority). You sit down. You’re not going yet.

      MARCHBANKS (quailing). No: I — I didn’t mean to. (He comes back into the room and sits down abjectly on the sofa.)

      CANDIDA. Mr. Marchbanks will stay the night with us, papa.

      BURGESS. Oh, well, I’ll say goodnight. So long, James. (He shakes hands with Morell and goes on to Eugene.) Make ’em give you a night light by your bed, Mr. Morchbanks: it’ll comfort you if you wake up in the night with a touch of that complaint of yores. Goodnight.

      MARCHBANKS. Thank you: I will. Goodnight, Mr. Burgess. (They shake hands and Burgess goes to the door.)

      CANDIDA (intercepting Morell, who is following Burgess). Stay here, dear: I’ll put on papa’s coat for him. (She goes out with Burgess.)

      MARCHBANKS. Morell: there’s going to be a terrible scene. Aren’t you afraid?

      MORELL. Not in the least.

      MARCHBANKS. I never envied you your courage before. (He rises timidly and puts his hand appealingly on Morell’s forearm.) Stand by me, won’t you?

      MORELL (casting him off gently, but resolutely). Each for himself, Eugene. She must choose between us now. (He goes to the other side of the room as Candida returns. Eugene sits down again on the sofa like a guilty schoolboy on his best behaviour.)

      CANDIDA (between them, addressing Eugene). Are you sorry?

      MARCHBANKS (earnestly). Yes, heartbroken.

      CANDIDA. Well, then, you are forgiven. Now go off to bed like a good little boy: I want to talk to James about you.

      MARCHBANKS (rising in great consternation). Oh, I can’t do that, Morell. I must be here. I’ll not go away. Tell her.

      CANDIDA (with quick suspicion). Tell me what? (His eyes avoid hers furtively. She turns and mutely transfers the question to Morell.)

      MORELL (bracing himself for the catastrophe). I have nothing to tell her, except (here his voice deepens to a measured and mournful tenderness) that she is my greatest treasure on earth — if she is really mine.

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