Part 3
SIR HARRY. [_Impatient._] Yes.
KATE. I propped it against the decanters. I thought you would be sure to see it there. It was a room not unlike this, and the furniture was arranged in the same attractive way. How it all comes back to me. Don't you see me, Harry, in hat and cloak, putting the letter there, taking a last look round, and then stealing out into the night to meet----
SIR HARRY. Whom?
KATE. Him. Hours pass, no sound in the room but the tick-tack of the clock, and then about midnight you return alone. You take----
SIR HARRY. [_Gruffly._] I wasn't alone.
KATE. [_The picture spoiled._] No? Oh. [_Plaintively._] Here have I all these years been conceiving it wrongly. [_She studies his face._] I believe something interesting happened.
SIR HARRY. [_Growling._] Something confoundedly annoying.
KATE. [_Coaxing._] Do tell me.
SIR HARRY. We won't go into that. Who was the man? Surely a husband has a right to know with whom his wife bolted.
KATE. [_Who is detestably ready with her tongue._] Surely the wife has a right to know how he took it. [_The woman's love of bargaining comes to her aid._] A fair exchange. You tell me what happened, and I will tell you who he was.
SIR HARRY. You will? Very well.
[_It is the first point on which they have agreed, and, forgetting himself, he takes a place beside her on the fire-seat. He is thinking only of what he is to tell her, but she, womanlike, is conscious of their proximity._
KATE. [_Tastelessly._] Quite like old times. [_He moves away from her indignantly._] Go on, Harry.
SIR HARRY. [_Who has a manful shrinking from saying anything that is to his disadvantage._] Well, as you know, I was dining at the club that night.
KATE. Yes.
SIR HARRY. Jack Lamb drove me home. Mabbett Green was with us, and I asked them to come in for a few minutes.
KATE. Jack Lamb, Mabbett Green? I think I remember them. Jack was in Parliament.
SIR HARRY. No, that was Mabbett. They came into the house with me and--[_with sudden horror_]--was it him?
KATE. [_Bewildered._] Who?
SIR HARRY. Mabbett?
KATE. What?
SIR HARRY. The man?
KATE. What man? [_Understanding._] Oh, no. I thought you said he came into the house with you.
SIR HARRY. It might have been a blind.
KATE. Well, it wasn't. Go on.
SIR HARRY. They came in to finish a talk we had been having at the club.
KATE. An interesting talk, evidently.
SIR HARRY. The papers had been full that evening of the elopement of some countess woman with a fiddler. What was her name?
KATE. Does it matter?
SIR HARRY. No. [_Thus ends the countess._] We had been discussing the thing and--[_he pulls a wry face_]--and I had been rather warm----
KATE. [_With horrid relish._] I begin to see. You had been saying it served the husband right, that the man who could not look after his wife deserved to lose her. It was one of your favorite subjects. Oh, Harry, say it was that!
SIR HARRY. [_Sourly._] It may have been something like that.
KATE. And all the time the letter was there, waiting; and none of you knew except the clock. Harry, it is sweet of you to tell me. [_His face is not sweet. The illiterate woman has used the wrong adjective._] I forget what I said precisely in the letter.
SIR HARRY. [_Pulverizing her._] So do I. But I have it still.
KATE. [_Not pulverized._] Do let me see it again.
[_She has observed his eye wandering to the desk._
SIR HARRY. You are welcome to it as a gift.
[_The fateful letter, a poor little dead thing, is brought to light from a locked drawer._
KATE. [_Taking it._] Yes, this is it. Harry, how you did crumple it! [_She reads, not without curiosity._] "Dear husband--I call you that for the last time--I am off. I am what you call making a bolt of it. I won't try to excuse myself nor to explain, for you would not accept the excuses nor understand the explanation. It will be a little shock to you, but only to your pride; what will astound you is that any woman could be such a fool as to leave such a man as you. I am taking nothing with me that belongs to you. May you be very happy.--Your ungrateful KATE. _P.S._--You need not try to find out who he is. You will try, but you won't succeed." [_She folds the nasty little thing up._] I may really have it for my very own?
SIR HARRY. You really may.
KATE. [_Impudently._] If you would care for a typed copy----?
SIR HARRY. [_In a voice with which he used to frighten his grandmother_.] None of your sauce! [_Wincing._] I had to let them see it in the end.
KATE. I can picture Jack Lamb eating it.
SIR HARRY. A penniless parson's daughter.
KATE. That is all I was.
SIR HARRY. We searched for the two of you high and low.
KATE. Private detectives?
SIR HARRY. They couldn't get on the track of you.
KATE. [_Smiling._] No?
SIR HARRY. But at last the courts let me serve the papers by advertisement on a man unknown, and I got my freedom.
KATE. So I saw. It was the last I heard of you.
SIR HARRY. [_Each word a blow for her._] And I married again just as soon as ever I could.
KATE. They say that is always a compliment to the first wife.
SIR HARRY. [_Violently._] I showed them.
KATE. You soon let them see that if one woman was a fool, you still had the pick of the basket to choose from.
SIR HARRY. By James, I did.
KATE. [_Bringing him to earth again._] But still, you wondered who he was.
SIR HARRY. I suspected everybody--even my pals. I felt like jumping at their throats and crying: "It's you!"
KATE. You had been so admirable to me, an instinct told you that I was sure to choose another of the same.
SIR HARRY. I thought, it can't be money, so it must be looks. Some dolly face. [_He stares at her in perplexity._] He must have had something wonderful about him to make you willing to give up all that you had with me.
KATE. [_As if he was the stupid one._] Poor Harry.
SIR HARRY. And it couldn't have been going on for long, for I would have noticed the change in you.
KATE. Would you?
SIR HARRY. I knew you so well.
KATE. You amazing man.
SIR HARRY. So who was he? Out with it.
KATE. You are determined to know?
SIR HARRY. Your promise. You gave your word.
KATE. If I must--[_She is the villain of the piece, but it must be conceded that in this matter she is reluctant to pain him._] I am sorry I promised. [_Looking at him steadily._] There was no one, Harry; no one at all.
SIR HARRY.. [_Rising._] If you think you can play with me----
KATE. I told you that you wouldn't like it.
SIR HARRY. [_Rasping._] It is unbelievable.
KATE. I suppose it is; but it is true.
SIR HARRY. Your letter itself gives you the lie.
KATE. That was intentional. I saw that if the truth were known you might have a difficulty in getting your freedom; and as I was getting mine it seemed fair that you should have yours also. So I wrote my good-by in words that would be taken to mean what you thought they meant, and I knew the law would back you in your opinion. For the law, like you, Harry, has a profound understanding of women.
SIR HARRY. [_Trying to straighten, himself._] I don't believe you yet.
KATE. [_Looking not unkindly into the soul of this man._] Perhaps that is the best way to take it. It is less unflattering than the truth. But you were the only one. [_Summing up her life._] You sufficed.
SIR HARRY. Then what mad impulse----
KATE. It was no impulse, Harry. I had thought it out for a year.
SIR HARRY. A year? [_Dazed._] One would think to hear you that I hadn't been a good husband to you.
KATE. [_With a sad smile._] You were a good husband according to your lights.
SIR HARRY. [_Stoutly._] _I_ think so.
KATE. And a moral man, and chatty, and quite the philanthropist.
SIR HARRY. [_On sure ground._] All women envied you.
KATE. How you loved me to be envied.
SIR HARRY. I swaddled you in luxury.
KATE. [_Making her great revelation._] That was it.
SIR HARRY. [_Blankly._] What?
KATE. [_Who can be serene because it is all over._] How you beamed at me when I sat at the head of your fat dinners in my fat jewelry, surrounded by our fat friends.
SIR HARRY. [_Aggrieved._] They weren't so fat.
KATE. [_A side issue._] All except those who were so thin. Have you ever noticed, Harry, that many jewels make women either incredibly fat or incredibly thin?
SIR HARRY. [_Shouting._] I have not. [_Is it worth while to argue with her any longer?_] We had all the most interesting society of the day. It wasn't only business men. There were politicians, painters, writers----
KATE. Only the glorious, dazzling successes. Oh, the fat talk while we ate too much--about who had made a hit and who was slipping back, and what the noo house cost and the noo motor and the gold soup-plates, and who was to be the noo knight.
SIR HARRY. [_Who it will be observed is unanswerable from first to last._] Was anybody getting on better than me, and consequently you?
KATE. Consequently me! Oh, Harry, you and your sublime religion.
SIR HARRY. [_Honest heart._] My religion? I never was one to talk about religion, but----
KATE. Pooh, Harry, you don't even know what your religion was and is and will be till the day of your expensive funeral. [_And here is the lesson that life has taught her._] One's religion is whatever he is most interested in, and yours is Success.
SIR HARRY. [_Quoting from his morning paper._] Ambition--it is the last infirmity of noble minds.
KATE. Noble minds!
SIR HARRY. [_At last grasping what she is talking about._] You are not saying that you left me because of my success?
KATE. Yes, that was it. [_And now she stands revealed to him._] I couldn't endure it. If a failure had come now and then--but your success was suffocating me. [_She is rigid with emotion._] The passionate craving I had to be done with it, to find myself among people who had not got on.
SIR HARRY. [_With proper spirit._] There are plenty of them.
KATE. There were none in our set. When they began to go down-hill they rolled out of our sight.
SIR HARRY. [_Clenching it._] I tell you I am worth a quarter of a million.
KATE [_Unabashed._] That is what you are worth to yourself. I'll tell you what you are worth to me: exactly twelve pounds. For I made up my mind that I could launch myself on the world alone if I first proved my mettle by earning twelve pounds; and as soon as I had earned it I left you.
SIR HARRY. [_In the scales._] Twelve pounds!
KATE. That is your value to a woman. If she can't make it she has to stick to you.
SIR HARRY. [_Remembering perhaps a rectory garden._] You valued me at more than that when you married me.
KATE. [_Seeing it also._] Ah, I didn't know you then. If only you had been a man, Harry.
SIR HARRY. A man? What do you mean by a man?
KATE. [_Leaving the garden._] Haven't you heard of them? They are something fine; and every woman is loath to admit to herself that her husband is not one. When she marries, even though she has been a very trivial person, there is in her some vague stirring toward a worthy life, as well as a fear of her capacity for evil. She knows her chance lies in him. If there is something good in him, what is good in her finds it, and they join forces against the baser parts. So I didn't give you up willingly, Harry. I invented all sorts of theories to explain you. Your hardness--I said it was a fine want of mawkishness. Your coarseness--I said it goes with strength. Your contempt for the weak--I called it virility. Your want of ideals was clear-sightedness. Your ignoble views of women--I tried to think them funny. Oh, I clung to you to save myself. But I had to let go; you had only the one quality, Harry, success; you had it so strong that it swallowed all the others.
SIR HARRY. [_Not to be diverted from the main issue._] How did you earn that twelve pounds?
KATE. It took me nearly six months; but I earned it fairly. [_She presses her hand on the typewriter as lovingly as many a woman has pressed a rose._] I learned this. I hired it and taught myself. I got some work through a friend, and with my first twelve pounds I paid for my machine. Then I considered that I was free to go, and I went.
SIR HARRY. All this going on in my house while you were living in the lap of luxury! [_She nods._] By God, you were determined.
KATE. [_Briefly._] By God, I was.
SIR HARRY. [_Staring._] How you must have hated me.
KATE. [_Smiling at the childish word._] Not a bit--after I saw that there was a way out. From that hour you amused me, Harry; I was even sorry for you, for I saw that you couldn't help yourself. Success is just a fatal gift.
SIR HARRY. Oh, thank you.
KATE. [_Thinking, dear friends in front, of you and me perhaps._] Yes, and some of your most successful friends knew it. One or two of them used to look very sad at times, as if they thought they might have come to something if they hadn't got on.
SIR HARRY. [_Who has a horror of sacrilege._] The battered crew you live among now--what are they but folk who have tried to succeed and failed?
KATE. That's it; they try, but they fail.
SIR HARRY. And always will fail.
KATE. Always. Poor souls--I say of them. Poor soul--they say of me. It keeps us human. That is why I never tire of them.
SIR HARRY. [_Comprehensively._] Bah! Kate, I tell you I'll be worth half a million yet.
KATE. I'm sure you will. You're getting stout, Harry.
SIR HARRY. No, I'm not.
KATE. What was the name of that fat old fellow who used to fall asleep at our dinner-parties?
SIR HARRY. If you mean Sir William Crackley----
KATE. That was the man. Sir William was to me a perfect picture of the grand success. He had got on so well that he was very, very stout, and when he sat on a chair it was thus [_her hands meeting in front of her_]--as if he were holding his success together. That is what you are working for, Harry. You will have that and the half million about the same time.
SIR HARRY. [_Who has surely been very patient._] Will you please to leave my house?
KATE. [_Putting on her gloves, soiled things._] But don't let us part in anger. How do you think I am looking, Harry, compared to the dull, inert thing that used to roll round in your padded carriages?
SIR HARRY. [_In masterly fashion._] I forget what you were like. I'm very sure you never could have held a candle to the present Lady Sims.
KATE. That is a picture of her, is it not?
SIR HARRY. [_Seizing his chance again._] In her wedding-gown. Painted by an R.A.
KATE. [_Wickedly._] A knight?
SIR HARRY. [_Deceived._] Yes.
KATE. [_Who likes_ LADY SIMS--_a piece of presumption on her part_.] It is a very pretty face.
SIR HARRY. [_With the pride of possession._] Acknowledged to be a beauty everywhere.
KATE. There is a merry look in the eyes, and character in the chin.
SIR HARRY. [_Like an auctioneer._] Noted for her wit.
KATE. All her life before her when that was painted. It is a _spirituelle_ face too. [_Suddenly she turns on him with anger, for the first and only time in the play._] Oh, Harry, you brute!
SIR HARRY. [_Staggered._] Eh? What?
KATE. That dear creature, capable of becoming a noble wife and mother--she is the spiritless woman of no account that I saw here a few minutes ago. I forgive you for myself, for I escaped, but that poor lost soul, oh, Harry, Harry.
SIR HARRY. [_Waving her to the door._] I'll thank you--If ever there was a woman proud of her husband and happy in her married life, that woman is Lady Sims.
KATE. I wonder.
SIR HARRY. Then you needn't wonder.
KATE. [_Slowly._] If I was a husband--it is my advice to all of them--I would often watch my wife quietly to see whether the twelve-pound look was not coming into her eyes. Two boys, did you say, and both like you?
SIR HARRY. What is that to you?
KATE. [_With glistening eyes_.] I was only thinking that somewhere there are two little girls who, when they grow up--the dear, pretty girls who are all meant for the men that don't get on! Well, good-by, Sir Harry.
SIR HARRY. [_Showing a little human weakness, it is to be feared._] Say first that you're sorry.
KATE. For what?
SIR HARRY. That you left me. Say you regret it bitterly. You know you do. [_She smiles and shakes her head. He is pettish. He makes a terrible announcement._] You have spoiled the day for me.
KATE. [_To hearten him._] I am sorry for that; but it is only a pin-prick, Harry. I suppose it is a little jarring in the moment of your triumph to find that there is--one old friend--who does not think you a success; but you will soon forget it. Who cares what a typist thinks?
SIR HARRY. [_Heartened._] Nobody. A typist at eighteen shillings a week!
KATE. [_Proudly._] Not a bit of it, Harry. I double that.
SIR HARRY. [_Neatly._] Magnificent!
[_There is a timid knock at the door._]
LADY SIMS. May I come in?
SIR HARRY. [_Rather appealingly._] It is Lady Sims.
KATE. I won't tell. She is afraid to come into her husband's room without knocking!
SIR HARRY. She is not. [_Uxoriously._] Come in, dearest.
[_Dearest enters, carrying the sword. She might have had the sense not to bring it in while this annoying person is here._
LADY SIMS. [_Thinking she has brought her welcome with her._] Harry, the sword has come.
SIR HARRY. [_Who will dote on it presently._] Oh, all right.
LADY SIMS. But I thought you were so eager to practise with it.
[_The person smiles at this. He wishes he had not looked to see if she was smiling._
SIR HARRY. [_Sharply._] Put it down.
[LADY SIMS _flushes a little as she lays the sword aside_.
KATE. [_With her confounded courtesy._] It is a beautiful sword, if I may say so.
LADY SIMS. [_Helped._] Yes.
[_The person thinks she can put him in the wrong, does she? He'll show her._
SIR HARRY. [_With one eye on_ KATE.] Emmy, the one thing your neck needs is more jewels.
LADY SIMS. [_Faltering._] More!
SIR HARRY. Some ropes of pearls. I'll see to it. It's a bagatelle to me. [KATE _conceals her chagrin, so she had better be shown the door. He rings._] I won't detain you any longer, miss.
KATE. Thank you.
LADY SIMS. Going already? You have been very quick.
SIR HARRY. The person doesn't suit, Emmy.
LADY SIMS. I'm sorry.
KATE. So am I, madam, but it can't be helped. Good-by, your ladyship--good-by, Sir Harry.
[_There is a suspicion of an impertinent courtesy, and she is escorted off the premises by_ TOMBES. _The air of the room is purified by her going._ SIR HARRY _notices it at once_.
LADY SIMS. [_Whose tendency is to say the wrong thing._] She seemed such a capable woman.
SIR HARRY. [_On his hearth._] I don't like her style at all.
LADY SIMS. [_Meekly._] Of course you know best.
[_This is the right kind of woman._
SIR HARRY. [_Rather anxious for corroboration._] Lord, how she winced when I said I was to give you those ropes of pearls.
LADY SIMS. Did she? I didn't notice. I suppose so.
SIR HARRY. [_Frowning._] Suppose? Surely I know enough about women to know that.
LADY SIMS. Yes, oh yes.
SIR HARRY. [_Odd that so confident a man should ask this._] Emmy, I know you well, don't I? I can read you like a book, eh?
LADY SIMS. [_Nervously._] Yes, Harry.
SIR HARRY. [_Jovially, but with an inquiring eye._] What a different existence yours is from that poor lonely wretch's.
LADY SIMS. Yes, but she has a very contented face.
SIR HARRY. [_With a stamp of his foot._] All put on. What?
LADY SIMS. [_Timidly._] I didn't say anything.
SIR HARRY. [_Snapping._] One would think you envied her.
LADY SIMS. Envied? Oh, no--but I thought she looked so alive. It was while she was working the machine.
SIR HARRY. Alive! That's no life. It is you that are alive. [_Curtly._] I'm busy, Emmy. [_He sits at his writing-table._
LADY SIMS. [_Dutifully._] I'm sorry; I'll go, Harry. [_Inconsequentially._] Are they very expensive?
SIR HARRY. What?
LADY SIMS. Those machines?
[_When she has gone the possible meaning of her question startles him. The curtain hides him from us, but we may be sure that he will soon be bland again. We have a comfortable feeling, you and I, that there is nothing of_ HARRY SIMS _in us_.
TRADITION
BY
GEORGE MIDDLETON
_Tradition_ is reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher, Henry Holt & Company, New York City. All rights reserved. For permission to perform, address the author, in care of the publisher.
The author and publisher of this play have permitted this reprinting of copyrighted material on the understanding that the play will be used only in classroom work. No other use of the play is authorized, and permission for any other use must be secured from the holder of the acting rights.
GEORGE MIDDLETON
George Middleton, one of the first to write and publish a volume of one-act plays in America, was born in Paterson, New Jersey, 1880. He was graduated from Columbia University in 1902. Since 1921 he has been literary editor of _La Follette's Weekly_, and, in addition, has been a frequent contributor to magazines and reviews on dramatic and literary subjects. During the last few years he has spent much of his time abroad.
George Middleton's chiefest interest has been in the one-act play. He has been an ardent champion of the shorter form of drama. Among his three volumes of one-act plays are _Embers_ (including _The Failures_, _The Gargoyle_, _In His House_, _Madonna_, and _The Man Masterful_), _Tradition_ (including _On Bail_, _Their Wife_, _Waiting_, _The Cheat of Pity_, and _Mothers_), and _Possession_ (including _The Grove_, _A Good Woman_, _The Black Tie_, _Circles_, and _The Unborn_). Other one-act plays are _Criminals_ and _The Reason_. His longer plays are _Nowadays_ and _The Road Together_. Mr. Middleton has lectured widely on the one-act play before colleges, in Little Theatres, and clubs. Perhaps his most notable article is _The Neglected One-Act Play_, which appeared in _The New York Dramatic Mirror_ in 1912.
_Tradition_ is one of Mr. Middleton's best and most popular one-act plays; and it most nearly conforms to the organic technic of the one-act play.
FIRST PERFORMANCE AT THE BERKELEY THEATRE, NEW YORK CITY, JANUARY 24, 1913.
(Produced under the personal direction of Mr. FRANK REICHER.)
THE PEOPLE
GEORGE OLLIVANT MR. GEORGE W. WILSON