Part 5

[_Enter ANN, looking very pale. She has obviously been weeping._

NINIAN: Ann, did you hear what Uncle William said?

ANN: Yes, I knew.

NINIAN: Knew what?

ANN: Knew that Mr. Jordan was with a woman that night.

NINIAN: Then why the devil——

ANN: I know. I was a fool. It was a silly thing to do. It was the first thing that came into my head.

NINIAN: Uncle William, I have insulted my wife this morning in a way that no woman has ever been insulted before. Ann, do you think that you can ever forgive me?

ANN: I forgive you.

NINIAN (_taking her hand and kissing it_): You are a saint.

ANN: Alas, no. You were right, Ninian. Only a human being.

[_Enter MOLYNEUX and LADY EMILY. They are all talking. LORD WILLIAM and ANN are D. S. L. corner._

LADY EMILY: There is nothing like the country, Ann, nothing like it.

MOLYNEUX: Home, sweet home. When I am asked if I have any relations I always say, I have some Cathcart connections.

ANN (_in a tone of desperate weariness_): Everything is going round and round just the same, though the bottom has fallen out of life.

LORD WILLIAM: My dear, life is a merry-go-round. It never stops for you however many things you drop. The onlooker sees you sitting on the same painted swan, but he can’t see your broken heart unless you show it to him. There is only one rule—not to fall off.

ANN: What is there left for me?

LORD WILLIAM: Your painted swan.

LADY EMILY: As we were crossing the park we met the vicar, who said, “Quite a stranger, Lady Emily.” It is delightful to be able to count on something in this world.

MOLYNEUX: Candover means a great deal to me. In the whole shifting scene of life, here alone I find my certainties.

LADY EMILY: Selina, do you remember that little thing like barley sugar who married a big-game shooter?

ANN (_desperately, to LORD WILLIAM_): Listen to them. I can’t bear it. They are going on as if nothing had happened.

LORD WILLIAM: Nothing has happened.

ANN: They are just the same—just the same as they were the day before yesterday.

LORD WILLIAM: Just the same as they were fifty years ago. Why should they change now?

ANN: And Ninian thinks that he has wronged me, and Tim believes that I am a saint.

LORD WILLIAM: Ninian did wrong you and you are a saint.

ANN: What was it you said? In life we don’t go from one thing to another, but from one thing to the same thing.

LORD WILLIAM: You see, one is after all the same person. Whatever we do, our actions are defeated by our characters.

ANN: Then this merry-go-round is a life sentence?

LORD WILLIAM: And you can’t change your swan without falling.

ANN (_passionately_): I want to fall——

LORD WILLIAM (_gently_): Listen, my dear, to what Emily is saying.

LADY EMILY:—she really was a very silly woman. Looking up with her huge blue eyes, she said, “My husband married me for love.”

MOLYNEUX:—And I commented acidly, “So many marriages can only be explained by love.”

LADY EMILY:—And the fool answered, “Dear Mr. Molyneux, it does me good to hear you say that. I knew you were an idealist.”

MOLYNEUX:—And then——?

CURTAIN

Washington, _November, 1922_.

PRINTED AT THE CHAPEL RIVER PRESS, KINGSTON, SURREY.