Sylvester!

[Exit, door in flat.

MRS. SYLVESTER [stops short on seeing Sylvester.].

Jack!

SYLVESTER.

This is an unexpected pleasure. [A cold matrimonial kiss.] Colonel Cazenove—my old Colonel. Mr. Cazenove I think you know.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Well, of course, Jack! How ridiculous you are! Should I be here if I didn’t know Mr. Cazenove?

SYLVESTER.

I haven’t the least notion. I only know you wouldn’t be at home.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

I was in all the morning.

SYLVESTER.

I had business at the Horse Guards. I shall be home to dinner, though.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Oh dear, I wish I had known that. There’s only mutton.

SYLVESTER.

The same mutton?

MRS. SYLVESTER.

What do you mean by same?

SYLVESTER.

I mean the mutton I had yesterday.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Did you have mutton yesterday?

SYLVESTER.

No matter; I’ll dine at the club.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Thank you, dear.

SYLVESTER.

Good-bye. [Kiss.] Good-bye, Mr. Cazenove.

COLONEL.

I will come with you. [To Gerald.] I am due at your aunt’s.

GERALD.

But I shall see you again presently?

COLONEL.

If I am visible behind Caroline. Madam, your servant. [Aside to Sylvester.] Cheer up, Sylvester! I’ll join you at the club, and we will wind the night up at the Empire.

[Exit after Sylvester, R. of flat.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

That is so like a man! Doesn’t say he’s coming home, and then expects six courses and a savoury!

GERALD.

There is a difference between cold mutton and six courses, to say nothing of the savoury.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

It is a fine distinction, and in no way affects the validity of my argument.

GERALD [smiling].

You mean, of your statement.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Husbands are all alike. The ancient regarded his wife as a slave, the modern regards her as a cook.

GERALD.

Then they are not alike.

MRS. SYLVESTER [emphatically].

A man thinks of nothing but his stomach.

GERALD.

That is another proposition.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

You’re very argumentative to-day. I haven’t seen you for six weeks, and you’ve come home in a nasty, horrid temper!

GERALD.

I have been working so hard.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Why is your face so brown?

GERALD.

Well, of course, I went out.

MRS. SYLVESTER [takes his hand].

And why are your hands blistered?

GERALD.

I had a few pulls on the river; and being out of training——

MRS. SYLVESTER [innocently].

Were you stroke?

[Holding his hands.

GERALD.

Not always.

[Bites his lip.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

On, then you weren’t alone?

GERALD.

I met an old friend up the river.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Now I understand why you didn’t write to me.

[Drops his hand and turns away pettishly.

GERALD.

About the book? [She gives him a quick glance.] Oh, I had nothing to say, except that I was getting on all right. I’ve written the first chapter.

[Produces MS.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

And I’ve written the last. [Opening portfolio.] Connoting the results of our arguments.

GERALD.

But where are the arguments?

MRS. SYLVESTER.

We’ll put those in afterwards. [Gerald looks at her.] That’s how Victoria always writes her novels. She begins at the end.

GERALD.

But this is a work of philosophy.

MRS. SYLVESTER [pouting].

Oh, you are disagreeable!

GERALD [putting MS. aside].

Don’t let us talk philosophy to-day. I want to talk to you about something else.

MRS. SYLVESTER [cheerfully].

Yes!

GERALD.

I have something to tell you.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Interesting?

[Smiling.

GERALD.

I’m in love.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Oh!

[From this point her manner changes.

GERALD.

Yes, in love, Mrs. Sylvester—in real love.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

What do you call real love?

GERALD.

Something quite different from what we had supposed. We’ve been on the wrong tack altogether. We have imagined something we have labelled love; we have put it into a crucible, and reduced it to its elements.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

And we have found those elements to be, community of interest and sympathy of soul.

GERALD.

But unfortunately for our theory, the thing we put into the crucible wasn’t love at all.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

How do you know?

GERALD.

I didn’t, till last week.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

It was at Mapledurham you made this discovery?

GERALD.

At Mapledurham.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

And your friend?

GERALD.

She was the revelation.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

I thought it was a woman.

GERALD.

That word just describes her. She is a woman—nothing more or less. Away went all my theories into air. My precious wisdom was stripped bare before me, and in its nakedness I saw my folly. Not with laborious thought; but in one vivid flash I learned more than I ever learned at Oxford.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Really?

GERALD.

A woman! that is what one wants—that’s all. Birth, brains, accomplishments—pshaw! vanities! community of