Index     1     2     3

ACT TWO

SCENE: Upstairs living room at the Smiths'. A luxuriously furnished room in perfect taste.

As the curtain rises, ROBERT, a tall, blond, impeccable butler, is serving coffee and brandy to AMANDA and GAY. During this rite they are both silent. GAY stretches on a sofa; he is relaxed; the food and the quiet and the careful massage to his ego administered by AMANDA during dinner have had the effect of smoothing out his smoldering irritations. When ROBERT has finished, he goes out.

AMANDA is wearing an exquisite house-dress—she looks ravishing. She is quiet, slim and dark; she has what is known as a classic profile, of which she is aware and which she displays unobtrusively, without ever a flourish. Her voice is gentle, low, musical. She seldom raises it. It is a rich voice rather; it vibrates with understanding and intimation. She lets it vibrate. She uses it; privately she tells herself that it has a cello quality. She has never confessed to anyone her private opinion of her voice. She is surprised though that no one has ever remarked it; this inattention she attributes to the fact that most people are unmusical. She herself is intensely musical. She knows music, she has heard everything, every composition, every soloist, every conductor. The cello finally produces a lovely tone.

AMANDA—Would you like to hear some music?

GAY—Yes.

AMANDA—What?

GAY—The slow movement of something.

AMANDA—So should I. Of what?

GAY—[Without shame] I don't know one composition from another.

AMANDA—That's not true. As a matter of fact you are very musical. [She goes to the Capehart cunningly concealed in the wall, presses a button and the Capehart obliges with the Schubert Trio. AMANDA returns and fills GAY'S coffee-cup and pours his favorite brandy. GAY extends himself a bit farther on the overstuffed sofa, drinking in the music, the coffee and the aroma of the excellent brandy. There is a silence while this pleasant absorption goes on. AMANDA goes, soundlessly, to get a stool—a moving, lovely statuette—and sits on the stool at GAY'S feet. She is smoking a cigarette in a long holder. Schubert fills the room.]

GAY—Who wrote that?

AMANDA—Schubert.

GAY—It sounds so effortless. Do you suppose he sweated over it?

AMANDA—I imagine not. Music poured out of him. He died at 31 and left over 70 works.

GAY—Lucky boy—on both counts. He left something fabulous in the way of an estate, didn't he? A few towels and some bed-linen. Read that in the program notes at the Philharmonic. That's where I get my musical culture. Wonder if Schubert could have gotten a job in Hollywood. . . . This is wonderful brandy, Amanda. . . . [She says nothing—a moment's pause—GAY takes in the room] Harmony—that's your strong point, isn't it? . . . Harmonious . . . not a discordant note anywhere. . . . All you have to do is sit here, digesting a perfect dinner, absorbing beautiful music through your ears and the bouquet of old brandy through your nostrils and harmony through every pore. In fact, it's a nice little ivory tower you've got here. . . .

AMANDA—[In a soft, low voice with no reproach in it] I know what you think of me, a spoiled rich woman, a dilettante. I know that really in your heart you despise me. It's true I've built an escape for myself here. But I don't want you to yield to it. Your rebellion against it, your indignation against it and against me are what, in an odd way, I want to foster. The curious thing is . . .

GAY—What?

AMANDA—This indignation, this bitterness are what I miss in your plays. How is it they don't get into your plays?

GAY—I suppose the plays are my ivory tower, my escape.

AMANDA—They shouldn't be. Not in that sense. They should express your struggle—not your escape from the struggle.

GAY—I can't take my struggles seriously. They're puny.

AMANDA—That's where you're wrong. They're the essential thing about you.

GAY—I wonder . . .

AMANDA—I'm sure of it.

GAY—Maybe I'm right to escape from them into an artificial world where people are gay and witty and have no nervous systems and no jungle in their minds. People with cultivated egos and no solar plexus.

AMANDA—No. That is your mistake, that is your dishonesty—in that discrepancy—between your work and you—that's why you're miserable. You live in a period of transition. You yourself haven't made it. Your work doesn't reflect it.

GAY—If my plays are trivial, perhaps it's because I am.

AMANDA—That's not true. I deny that passionately.

GAY—Perhaps one expresses oneself in spite of oneself. One manages to—your unconscious forces you to. One's expression, I imagine, is what one is—no more, no less. I must have read that somewhere. Croce. Benedetto Croce. A book called Aesthetics. I read it in college. He says that when you hear a yearner say he has wonderful ideas if he could only express them, he's a liar. He's kidding himself. He has no ideas to express.

AMANDA—Too bad you ever read that. You're so impressionable, Gay. Everything affects you.

GAY—Something in it.

AMANDA—Nothing in it. Expression should be not yourself but an extension of yourself. Not what you are but what you might be.

GAY—[Skeptically] Living above your means artistically—inflation in the aesthetic realm—disastrous as it is in the economic—or so the all-wise columnists tell me. God damn it, Mandy, how little one knows first-hand—how much we have to take on faith from what other people tell us. How little we get down to First Principles. Wish I had a First Principle. Haven't got one—not one measly First Principle.

AMANDA—Don't wander.

GAY—Love to wander.

AMANDA—Keeps you from facing the issue.

GAY—Naturally, for me facing the issue is like facing a firing-squad.

AMANDA—Exactly.

GAY—What is the issue? I've forgotten it.

AMANDA—[Inexorably] No, you haven't!

GAY—Whether I'm an important fellow or a little fellow. I'll answer that!

AMANDA—It'll be a wrong answer. The truth is—you coddle yourself. You're lazy. You permit yourself to be diverted by circumstances.

GAY—What circumstances? [A pause. She won't tell. GAY insists] What circumstances?

AMANDA—Shall I tell you? Do you really want to hear?

GAY—No.

AMANDA—[With a little laugh] I thought you didn't. [He knows what she means—he lets it go for the moment. A pause. In these intervals of silence, the lovely music, pitched low, becomes audible] Listen to that. . . . [They do for a moment] How else can you achieve anything except by going beyond what you can hope? That's the whole realm of imagination, isn't it—extension! What are we, anyway? Organisms for digestion and reproduction—and yet we produce music like this. Inflation exactly. That's what art is. Extension of credit. Over-extension. Ad infinitum.

GAY—[To get to more immediate ground] What circumstances?

AMANDA—You will misunderstand me.

GAY—What do you care?

AMANDA—[Bravely] Well, then, the circumstance that you are married to a very brilliant and brittle actress of comedy and that you have written your plays not to express yourself but to express her. This is the first time really that you have broken away from that circumstance in your work. Did you tell her, by the way?

GAY—No.

AMANDA—[Teasingly, with a little laugh] Coward!

GAY—[Quiet, agreeing] Poltroon!

AMANDA—You'll have to tell her, you know.

GAY—She's been waiting for six months for a play by me. Couldn't bear to tell her there's no part for her in my new one.

AMANDA—Doesn't she ask what you are doing?

GAY—Yes. Of course.

AMANDA—What do you say?

GAY—Oh, she's used to me grousing.

AMANDA—You ought to tell her. So she can get something else for next season.

GAY—She's reading scripts all the time. Hasn't found anything. I feel curiously . . .

AMANDA—It's not your fault.

GAY—Nevertheless, I feel curiously . . .

AMANDA—You didn't set out not to write a part for her. You set out to do a serious play. That there will be no part in it for her is sad. It is also significant. I must sound horrid.

GAY—[After a moment] You like the first act, don't you?

AMANDA—It's superb. You know it is.

GAY—I don't.

AMANDA—You were in such wonderful spirits when you came in this afternoon—so exhilarated. You couldn't have been if . . .

GAY—Since then I've had a sinking of the heart. I feel I've bitten off more than I can chew. I've jumped off the deep end. I may drown.

AMANDA—Better to drown in the deep sea than perish in a shallow.

GAY—Why?

AMANDA—[Hurt] Really, Gay, this ingrained habit of flippancy . . .

GAY—I'm sorry. The truth is, Mandy, I've got a terrible sinking of the heart about the second act. Mandy . . .

AMANDA—[Prepared to sympathize and undergo creative spasms] What, dear?

GAY—Shut off that God-damned music.

AMANDA—Yes, dear. [Tranquilly, unhurried, she moves to the little apparatus near the door and shuts off the music.]

GAY—I've got a horrible suspicion that all I've got here is a one-act idea—one of those God-damned trick things that's insoluble once you spring it. . . .

AMANDA—[Firmly, standing by] I don't believe it.

GAY—Barrie had an idea like that once—a dilemma that couldn't be resolved.

AMANDA—That wouldn't be a bad title for the play. . . .

GAY—What?

AMANDA—Dilemma.

GAY—Yes. Not bad.

AMANDA—Do you like it really?

GAY—It's all right. Now all I need is the play.

AMANDA—You mustn't let yourself get discouraged. I won't let you give this up. I know—I feel—that this departure will mark a turning-point for you—be significant for all your future work—beyond what you realize.

GAY—[On his feet now and thinking] Curtain of the first act is good, isn't it?

AMANDA—It's breath-taking. The suspense of it is really thrilling. Will he go into that room or won't he?

GAY—What'll he do though after he gets into the room? After the father sees him? No—it's impossible—it's a false alarm. It's one of those flashy ideas that sound marvelous. It's a trick; it won't work.

AMANDA—I don't believe it.

GAY—[In utter despair] I'm washed up, Mandy!

AMANDA—Now just sit down quietly and have a whiskey and soda and be calm.

GAY—It's no good. It's lousy. It won't wash. The hell with it. [She mixes him the drink and gives it to him. He sits moodily, the drink in his hand, in despair, facing his doom as a writer.]

AMANDA—[Very matter-of-factly, not losing her head in the crisis] Now then—it might be useful to recapitulate. . . . [He takes a swallow and contemplates the carpet] look at your idea as a whole—think of your idea as a whole. . . .

GAY—It's one of those ideas for which there's no resolution—once you've sprung it.

AMANDA—I don't believe it. You haven't even begun to explore its possibilities. Let me recapitulate it for you. Do you mind? It may restore your perspective on the whole thing. [He says nothing; he is beyond hope. Suddenly she goes on] A distinguished scientist whose reputation is unimpeachable—Nobel prize winner in chemistry and all that—has an only son who goes off to fight for the Loyalists in the Spanish war. The boy is killed. He is blown to bits by a German bomb at Guernica. The father finds this fact unbearable. He cannot reconcile himself to it. He simply cannot endure the fact that his beautiful boy—a poet, generous, gifted and sensitive—should be scattered, unrecognizably mangled, in a Spanish suburb. . . . [GAY sits, moodily listening. His brain is settling into a groove of concentration. He begins to feel some resolution impending. She observes this; her beautiful voice goes on, hypnotically] Well, he goes on with his work, clings to his work, spends days and nights in his laboratory. One night he falls asleep on his cot for an hour or two—and his son appears to him, his son speaks to him. He wakes up, thinking it a dream, but the communication continues. He begins to investigate psychic phenomena and he becomes convinced that communication with the dead is possible. He is convinced by the messages he gets from his son. He writes a book and publishes these communications. So that this man, this renowned scientist, this arch-skeptic, this dealer in tested phenomena who has hitherto regarded all such goings-on as the refuge of the distraught, the stamping-ground for border-cases, marginal hysterics, becomes himself a convert to mysticism, a Prince of the Occult. Because of his scientific eminence this conversion becomes an international sensation. All over the world, the bruised, the grief-stricken, the disinherited, those who, finding life unbearable, idealize death, flock to him for comfort—just as, in another time, these same people followed Christ. [A pause. GAY sits, listening, brooding. He swallows another drink. The cello plays on] To become in one's own lifetime an acknowledged messiah has its compensations. The scientist delves deeper and deeper into psychic phenomena. The more he delves the more he becomes convinced of their validity. People come to see him from all over the world, just as they came to see Tolstoy. He has a vast correspondence which it takes a whole staff of secretaries to handle. Gradually he is forced to give up his scientific work altogether. He addresses gigantic meetings. . . . [Another pause, and GAY takes another drink] Into one of these meetings in Albert Hall in London a young man wanders. He listens. Suddenly an area clears in his befuddled brain. He remembers. The gray-bearded man on the platform is his father. The past, which has been obscured for him by the horror of his experience in the Spanish war, looms up in his mind. His history begins to take form. He sees it. He remembers where he lived before he enlisted; he wanders out through the streets of London struggling to remember more. Finally he makes his way to his father's house in St. John's Wood. Yes. There it is—his father's house. Yes, he is himself. He has not died in the air-raid. There has been an error in identification. He is his father's son. He has recovered his identity. He goes inside, asks the old servant to see his father. She doesn't remember him, doesn't know him, believing him to be dead. The father has not yet returned from the lecture. She asks him to wait. He sits there, waiting, when suddenly a horrid misgiving strikes him. . . . Words spoken by his father in the meeting come back to him. It is borne in on him that his father has a new career, that he is delivering a message to the world and that this message is based on a single fact—his own death. Will his father want to see him? Dare he be alive? This resurrection from the grave—what will it do but expose to the world another in the long list of the false messiahs. . . . He looks out of the window and sees the bent old man, his father, his face lined with grief and lit by faith, being helped out of his car. Shall he face him? Shall he go away? He hesitates, his hand on the latch of the door—Curtain! [A moment. GAY sits absorbed and quiet, the highball glass in his hand.]

GAY—[In a strained, tense, unnatural voice] Mandy. . . .

AMANDA—Yes, Gay.

GAY—Mandy, darling. . . .

AMANDA—Yes, dear.

GAY—I've got it!

AMANDA—[Thrilled] Gay!

GAY—I've got it!

AMANDA—[Beside herself] Gay . . . Gay, darling!

GAY—[On his feet] I've got the second act, Mandy—you adorable, wonderful creature, I've got it. I just see it. While you were talking—I felt it coming—and I've got it—I see my way out—I've got it!

AMANDA—I knew you would.

GAY—You've saved my life, Mandy. [He embraces her.]

AMANDA—Nonsense! I've done nothing!

GAY—I've been struggling for days with this—for weeks—and you've given it to me!

AMANDA—I only repeated your own idea—what you brought to me.

GAY—There's something about you, some magic. . . .

AMANDA—What is it?

GAY—[A little surprised] What?

AMANDA—The idea.

GAY—Oh! It's this . . .

AMANDA—Perhaps you prefer not to tell it. Perhaps it would be better if you didn't tell it?

GAY—No. I want to. It's this . . .

AMANDA—I'm so excited I can't bear it!

GAY—God, I hope it'll still be good! [She laughs.]

AMANDA—Of course it's good. I know it's good.

GAY—Darling, I've got to have another drink.

AMANDA—You shall. [She pours it.]

GAY—If this is really good I'm saved! [She gives him a drink] You can see what a hell of a spot I was in with that curtain—the dilemma was not only the hero's but my own. . . .

AMANDA—I know. That's why I think it's so wonderful your . . .

GAY—But now I see it—I think I see it.

AMANDA—[Quivering with curiosity] I can't bear it another minute.

GAY—The boy doesn't leave the house. He waits. The fact that his old nurse hasn't recognized him gives him an idea—he looks at the photograph of himself on the table—then he looks into the mirror. He laughs at the idea that he thought anybody might recognize him. His face is all patched up—half of it shot away—he is really a testimonial to the progress of plastic surgery—he realizes now why the old woman had turned her eyes away from him—his father comes in—he tells him that he is a friend of his dead son's . . . he carries a letter from him—the father sends the old woman to fetch the boy's mother and sister—the boy takes out a piece of paper from his pocket—a poem he had written on his last day—a poem on Spain. . . .

AMANDA—Oh, Gay, it's too . . .

GAY—When his mother and sister come in he gives them this poem—this is a message from their son to them, which he had asked him to deliver to them if he survived. . . . They take the paper, read the poem. They weep. The boy watches them with a strange kind of amusement. He realizes that his voice also is another voice—a ghost's voice—his vocal cords have been hurt so that he speaks hoarsely—he realizes that he is, in fact, a ghost. . . .

AMANDA—[Deeply moved] Oh, Gay, you make me cry.

GAY—He realizes also that if his father did recognize him it would be a major tragedy for the father—because his whole life now is centered on this new illusion he has created—this method of communication with the dead—this proof of immortality. . . .

AMANDA—They none of them know him!

GAY—They none of them know him. They none of them want to know him. Ghosts make uncomfortable house guests. He takes tea and talks to them about their darling—describes what he did and said and felt in his last days. With complete sincerity the father shows him messages he has received from the dead boy—messages which confirm the spoken testimony of this miraculous eye-witness—the kind of coincidence made possible by any sensitive and powerful imagination. . . .

AMANDA—It's wonderful—Gay, darling—it's wonderful. . . .

GAY—[Feverishly excited] And then, listen—he stays there, goes among them, lives among them—a ghost secure in his nonentity, made increasingly aware that he himself is not wanted—with one exception. . . .

AMANDA—Who?

GAY—His girl. His sweetheart. The girl he was going to marry when he left. Something gives it away to her. Some trick of phrase—something—I don't know—I'll have to make it up—something between them that she knows unmistakably belongs to them alone—and she's—it all just comes to me as I go along—she's fallen in love with another man—she's going to marry another man—but she recognizes him, she knows—and that scene, that moment of recognition when she finds out and the audience knows she's found out—that's my curtain for the second act. I think it's good, Mandy!

AMANDA—Wonderful!

GAY—I think it's good—I think it'll hold! What do you think?

AMANDA—It's marvelous.

GAY—It'll give me a third act too—I'm sure it'll give me a third. . . .

AMANDA—Of course it will.

GAY—Oh, Mandy, I love you! [She laughs, a little skeptically, a little ruefully. He takes her in his arms] I do love you. You're good for me. You're wonderful for me! I'd never have gotten this idea if not for you.

AMANDA—Nonsense. Of course you would!

GAY—It's you started me on this. I'd never have tried it at all, if not for you.

AMANDA—While you're high on it—why don't you put it down? Go into the library and put it down before you forget it.

GAY—All right. Darling . . .

AMANDA—Darling!

GAY—I love you.

AMANDA—No, you don't.

GAY—I'm grateful to you.

AMANDA—Something quite different. And there's no reason for it. My life is so empty—this is all I have—if I can help you to express yourself—I've always felt such profound things in you—unrealized potentialities. You can be great, Gay. . . .

GAY—[Thinking of his domestic problem] Mandy . . .

AMANDA—Yes?

GAY—Perhaps I should tell you, Mandy . . .

AMANDA—What?

GAY—Linda. She knows.

AMANDA—Did you speak to her?

GAY—Never mentioned you.

AMANDA—Did she say so?

GAY—Not a word.

AMANDA—Then how?

GAY—I saw your telephone number on a pad on her table. She knows.

AMANDA—I wonder how then . . .

GAY—I haven't the faintest idea. She probably thinks were having an affair.

AMANDA—As we're not, your conscience may be clear.

GAY—God, what a chore sex is!

AMANDA—[Demurely] Some people find it entertaining.

GAY—Its penalties are out of all proportion to its delights. [The telephone rings. AMANDA answers it. Her voice on the telephone is soft, low, modulated.]

AMANDA—[On the telephone] Hello . . . Pym, dear, how are you? . . . Where are you? . . . Yes, I know with whom you are . . . I'd love to . . . I'd be delighted . . . Tell her I'll be only too . . . Come over at once . . . Bye. [She hangs up.]

GAY—[Morose] Who the hell is that?

AMANDA—A beau of mine—Pym Lovell.

GAY—Lovell!

AMANDA—And your wife!

GAY—[In a burst of fury] She knew I was here. She's spying on me.

AMANDA—Do you want to leave?

GAY—What for?

AMANDA—Sometimes I think you're afraid of Linda.

GAY—Oh, you do! I haven't told her about you to spare her feelings! If she chooses to track me down, spy on me, get a stooge like Makepeace Lovell to call you up when she knows I'm here, very well, then, let's justify her suspicions.

AMANDA—How does she know you are here?

GAY—She guesses. There's nothing she doesn't guess. It's like living with a medium!

AMANDA—Too bad this had to happen just now—when you were so excited about your idea. You could go into the library and work and she need never know you're here at all.

GAY—[Sulkily] No, thanks! I don't mind hiding in a bedroom, but hiding in a library seems kind of dry! For God's sake, give me a drink.

AMANDA—[Obedient] I hate to think of your losing your enthusiasm. You ought to put down these ideas at white heat.

GAY—[Grimly] I'll remember them.

AMANDA—You tell me that often you don't.

GAY—Then you'll remember them.

AMANDA—[Seriously] I could try. Shall I go into the library and try to put down what you said? And you can receive Linda. [Her little laugh. She gives him the drink.]

GAY—[Fuming still] The thing about Linda I can stand least is the unconscious censorship she exercises over me!

AMANDA—How?

GAY—Something damnable in our relationship which makes it impossible for me to be unfaithful to her.

AMANDA—You're in love with her.

GAY—What does that mean?

AMANDA—You must be.

GAY—It may be because in my first marriage—whatever you may say—how did you find it?

AMANDA—What?

GAY—I don't know whether you cheated—I did. And it does—whatever you may say—it does something to the fabric of a marriage, coarsens it, rots it. Does that sound Victorian? Why the hell shouldn't I sound Victorian if I want to?

AMANDA—[Bravely] You're in love with her. I've felt that

GAY—It's got nothing to do with love. I resent Linda. I resent her lucidity, her clarity, the absence in her of . . . I find myself becoming involved with another woman—I feel myself settling into the worn grooves of seduction—and I never fail—even when she is not there . . . [His rebellion mounts at the injustice of it] even when she doesn't know. I never fail to hear her silent laughter reducing my ardor to platitude.

AMANDA—Is that your experience with me?

GAY—We're above that, thank God. Our relation has a sounder basis.

AMANDA—Yes, thank God it has.

GAY—What a miserable ambush sex is! I was reading some early war memoirs—the late war, not the present ones. You know, these fellows, Rupert Brooke and the rest of them. One discovers that they went to war as to a lustral purge. They wanted to get away from the trivialities of sex to something ennobling, heroic. Well, they went from one ambush to another. The scientists are the lucky ones.

AMANDA—Think so?

GAY—Absorbed in the passion for truth.

AMANDA—Not exclusively.

GAY—[With a sharp look at her] No?

AMANDA—I've known at least one very distinguished scientist. He invited me to his laboratory and attacked me among the test tubes.

GAY—[Not without jealousy] You invite that sort of thing.

AMANDA—[Demurely] Do I?

GAY—You know damn well you do!

AMANDA—[Drops it, inscrutable] You artists exaggerate the detachment of scientists. Philo says that most scientists are small-minded because their outlook is limited to their specialties.

GAY—What sort of guy is this Philo?

AMANDA—Cold as ice. He really has the detachment you mistakenly attribute to the scientists.

GAY—What the hell kind of a name is that Philo? How could you marry a fellow named Philo?

AMANDA—I thought I could help him. He had a moment of weakness which he has never forgiven himself for revealing to me.

GAY—[Abruptly] Nevertheless, you invite that sort of thing!

AMANDA—If that is so, the invitation is so subtle that it is inaudible at least to you.

GAY—I've got to divorce Linda. She spoils my fun! [AMANDA laughs her soft, purring laugh.]

AMANDA—You're intensely respectable, Gay.

GAY—[In bitter self-hatred] Of course I am! I'm a wretched Puritan! [PHILO comes in. He hesitates at the door. He didn't know AMANDA was to be home. He had been told she was dining out. He acts like a stranger, as if the house didn't belong to him.]

PHILO—Oh! I . . .

AMANDA—[Easily] You know Mr. Esterbrook?

PHILO—Yes.

GAY—How are you?

PHILO—[Nods, murmurs inarticulate greeting] Excuse me.

GAY—What for?

PHILO—I just . . .

AMANDA—Early for you, Philo. We dined in. Gave up the theatre at the last minute.

PHILO—[Very abstracted] Yes.

GAY—[To lighten things up] Was just about to go into your library—to add to its collection!

PHILO—Oh?

AMANDA—Gay's just had a thrilling idea for his new play.

PHILO—Oh—may I just—I need a few reference books—may I just . . . Excuse me. [He goes out through library door.]

GAY—[After a moment] You married a monosyllable. Is he always so garrulous?

AMANDA—He's a very clever man.

GAY—Big executive. I always remember Willie Rothenstein saying to me in London that most of these business big-shots are over-rated. Not half as difficult running their enterprises—not half as difficult as painting an eye. Let 'em paint an eye, says Willie.

AMANDA—No. Philo is a very clever man. But he's possessive about it. He hoards it.

GAY—That's how you get so rich, I suppose. Not be prodigal about anything. Will he stay in the library long?

AMANDA—No, he'll just get some books and take them to his room.

GAY—Does he read?

AMANDA—Omnivorously.

GAY—[Surprised] Does he really?

AMANDA—Yes. In fact, he's writing something.

GAY—Really! What?

AMANDA—I don't know. I've never asked him and he's never told me.

GAY—He acts like a stranger here. You imagine that if he came into this room in the dark he wouldn't know where the pushbuttons were.

AMANDA—Neither would he!

GAY—Most of the books in his library are locked behind grilles.

AMANDA—It's a famous collection, I believe.

GAY—Rich men give themselves a sense of intellectual distinction by buying first editions and collecting pictures. They feel in their hearts that merely by the act of purchase they've written the books and painted the pictures.

AMANDA—Philo's not like that. He really reads the books.

GAY—Does he?

AMANDA—Yes.

GAY—[Harking back abruptly] What was his weakness?

AMANDA—What?

GAY—The moment of weakness for which he's never forgiven himself or you?

AMANDA—You want to know everything, don't you?

GAY—Yes. I do.

AMANDA—You're insatiable.

GAY—I'm not exactly inscrutable myself. I hate reticence in others.

AMANDA—Permit me some mystery.

GAY—Not a scrap. Hate it. Mystery isn't provocative. It's irritating.

AMANDA—[Laughs] I'm afraid I've revealed myself much too much to you already.

GAY—You reveal yourself, but discreetly—like an odalisk slowly raising a veil.

AMANDA—Really, Gay! [PHILO comes back, carrying an armful of books. He starts across the room with his burden.]

PHILO—Excuse me.

GAY—[Indicating books] Are those from behind the grilles?

PHILO—I beg your pardon.

GAY—So many of your books are behind steel grilles. Firsts, I suppose?

PHILO—A good many.

GAY—Really?

PHILO—Yes.

GAY—I can't understand this passion for first editions. I'd just as soon read a book in the Modern Library. When you have to lock a book behind a grille like a teller in a bank there seems something strained about it.

PHILO—Some are unique texts.

GAY—Then they should be in a museum.

PHILO—They will be. They are only waiting, as is customary with the relatives of rich men, for me to die. [AMANDA stabs him, a look. She hates him. GAY looks at him anew also, feels suddenly a curdled respect for him, but increased antagonism.]

GAY—Mandy tells me you write.

PHILO—Not exactly. I compile.

GAY—Research must be fascinating. You get a sense of creation without the agony.

PHILO—[In his edged voice] There is something in what you say. I hope you are not one of those authors who get a sense of creation merely because they agonize. At any rate the library is at your service now for either process—I trust for both.

GAY—Thank you very much. I've never worked in a vault before. I may be outside the grilles now, but one day I'll be behind them. God, I'm getting pompous. [He goes out through library door. A moment's silence between PHILO and AMANDA.]

PHILO—For a fashionable writer your friend's repartees are rather lame.

AMANDA—He's not a fashionable writer. He's much better than that. Besides, you would lame anybody.

PHILO—Need we, at this late date, bother with personalities?

AMANDA—[Tragically] I suppose not.

PHILO—Why is he so combative? Am I in his way? Surely not. I even let him use my library!

AMANDA—I find your humor disgusting!

PHILO—You are over-sensitive. Good night. [He turns to go.]

AMANDA—Good night.

PHILO—[Stops at hall door] The boys are coming home for the Thanksgiving holidays. Shall you be in town?

AMANDA—I expect so.

PHILO—Robert is bringing a friend to stay.

AMANDA—[Viciously] I'll be here and I'll be nice to them. Robert's friends like me very much. I do more for them on their holidays than you do!

PHILO—[Quite sincerely] I appreciate what you do for them very much. I am delighted that you will be in town. Good night, Amanda.

AMANDA—[Obeying some obscure impulse] The lady whose society you seemed to enjoy so much the other evening at the Wylers' is coming.

PHILO—[At the door] What lady?

AMANDA—Gay's wife. You remember her, I am sure. She talked a blue streak. You seemed to enjoy it.

PHILO—The actress?

AMANDA—Yes—on and off.

PHILO—She coming here!

AMANDA—Yes. Why are you so surprised?

PHILO—When is she coming?

AMANDA—[Jealous not of PHILO but of LINDA] You'd like to see her! I believe you would!

PHILO—As I remember—she is extremely vivacious.

AMANDA—Yes. That is her specialty. She'll be here any minute. I'm sure she'll be glad to see you. Why don't you wait up?

PHILO—[Considering for a moment and deciding it inadvisable] I think not. Thank you, Amanda. I am very tired. [He goes out, carrying the books under his arm. For some reason AMANDA is pleased by her husband's refusal so wait up for LINDA. It encourages her as proving that LINDA is not universally irresistible. It is for this reason that she takes the trouble, later, to make it clear to LINDA that PHILO did not take advantage of the opportunity to see her. She pauses—a general scrutinizing of the terrain, weighing possibilities. She is thinking shrewdly. She rings for the butler, ROBERT, who presently comes in.]

AMANDA—Robert, Mr. Esterbrook is in the library, working. Will you please see that he has a thermos of hot coffee and a drink if he wants it? Mr. Lovell and Mrs. Esterbrook are coming. Will you tell them, please, that Mr. Esterbrook is in the library working and asked not to be disturbed on any account? Let me know the moment they come. [After a moment] I shall be in the library.

ROBERT—[Taking everything in precisely] Yes, madame.

AMANDA—Thank you, Robert. [ROBERT goes out through the dining-room doors at the left. AMANDA is left alone. She hears voices; LINDA and PYM. She goes out quickly through the library door. LINDA comes in with MAKEPEACE LOVELL. He is an attractive, wryly humorous young Englishman. He has a distinguished ancestry, a small income and does odd journalism; PYM hasn't quite found himself. He hovers pleasantly on the brink of this discovery, feeling somehow it'll be more fun not ever quite to find out. LINDA, for whatever reason, is in high spirits. She has gone home and gotten herself into a lovely evening frock.]

PYM—[In the drawling staccato which CLEMENTINE finds unintelligible] I have distinctly the feeling, Linda, that in maneuvering me here when I didn't in the least want to come you are using me.

LINDA—I have distinctly the feeling, Pym, that in maneuvering you here precisely now I may be altering the course of your whole life.

PYM—Does it want altering? Doesn't it fit?

LINDA—[Looks at him approvingly] Oh, nicely, yes, perfectly, but Mandy's the girl for you.

PYM—I don't love Mandy. I love you.

LINDA—Mandy'll see your latent possibilities. She'll have an affair with you.

PYM—[Loftily] I am not a casual sensualist, Miss Paige.

LINDA—Oh, there'll be nothing gross about it—it'll all be on a high plane—very mystic.

PYM—You're not in the least interested in my diversions. You just got me here to fetch your husband, which is my idea of a prosaic errand.

LINDA—Alas, that is all so true! [ROBERT comes through with the coffee thermos and the highball things on a tray.]

ROBERT—[To LINDA] Mrs. Smith asked me to tell you that Mr. Esterbrook is in the library, working, and asked on no account to be disturbed.

LINDA—Where's Mrs. Smith?

ROBERT—She is in the library. She wanted to know directly you came.

LINDA—Well, we're here.

ROBERT—I'll tell her. [He goes out through the library door. PYM and LINDA look at each other.]

LINDA—Working! He hasn't worked in months!

PYM—What do you suppose they're doing in there?

LINDA—[Her mind working fast] Working . . . This is bad, Pym . . . Worse than you
think . . .

PYM—Bad for you. Good for me. Your misery comforts me. Marvelous for cads.

LINDA—This is bad!

PYM—You said that!

LINDA—I don't mind telling you, Pym, I'm rather up against it! You mustn't repeat what I am going to tell you to a soul.

PYM—Please, Linda darling, don't make a confidant of me. That's fatal.

LINDA—You must help me.

PYM—Certainly not!

LINDA—You must leave me alone with Mandy. Get an attack of something and say you have to go home. Please, darling, leave me alone with her.

PYM—As I can't be alone with you I don't mind in the least doing that. Shall I go back to your flat and wait for you? I feel like baring my soul to Clementine. You know I told Clementine the other day that I was a First in Greats at Oxford, but it didn't at all impress her. That piqued me rather.

LINDA—No, don't go to my place; go to yours.

PYM—You hope to retrieve Gay?

LINDA—Yes.

PYM—If you don't retrieve him, will you call me the minute you get home?

LINDA—Yes.

PYM—Promise?

LINDA—[Looking toward library door] Yes.

PYM—Right. The terms are humiliating in a way, but then we Lovells are patient. An ancestor of mine waited half a century for a stubborn woman, married her at seventy and gave her three children. I am your Fate, Linda. Fellers like me made the Empire. Surely I shouldn't fail with you.

LINDA—Sometimes, Makepeace, your humor is meretricious, but if you just do this for
me . . .

PYM—[Cross] Don't call me Makepeace.

LINDA—It's your name.

PYM—When you call me Makepeace my chances seem to dwindle. [AMANDA comes in. She goes at once to LINDA. She is full of warmth and welcome.]

AMANDA—How very nice of you to come!

LINDA—How very nice of you to have me!

AMANDA—Pym dear, how are you? [She offers him her cheeks to kiss; he pecks them.]

PYM—How are you, pet?

AMANDA—[To LINDA] I've asked Gay often to bring you. Has he never told you?

LINDA—As a matter of fact, no, I don't think he has.

AMANDA—Well, that's very neglectful of him. But then—I don't suppose we should expect ordinary punctuality from genius.

PYM—Why not?

AMANDA—You're not a genius, Pym dear, or you'd know. Wouldn't he, Linda? Do you mind if I call you Linda? I feel I know you so well . . .

LINDA—Of course . . .

AMANDA—Call me Mandy. Gay and I were sitting here quietly after dinner over coffee and listening to Schubert when he suddenly got an idea . . .

LINDA—At last!

AMANDA—And nothing will do but he must rush into the library and set it down at once.

PYM—Sounds very rude!

AMANDA—[To LINDA] He doesn't understand, does be?

LINDA—Not in the least!

PYM—Well, if people jumped up and rushed into seclusion whenever any sort of idea hit them, what would become of social life? You couldn't possibly give a dinner party.

AMANDA—Fortunately, I suppose, very few people get ideas.

PYM—Nonsense. Nothing is so common. I get ideas all the time. But I file them decently in my mind till I'm alone, at which time I discard them. Conventional digestion.

AMANDA—[Doesn't like this vein much] My husband was here. He did enjoy you so the other night at the Wylers'. I told him you were coming and asked him to wait up to see you, but, alas, he is a creature of routine. He went to bed with a book. Philo is always doing that. [Having gotten this off, she is relieved. She sighs.]

LINDA—I'm sorry. I should like to have seen him again. Our last meeting was so—provocative!

AMANDA—Shall I send for him? He may be still up.

LINDA—Oh, no, please not.

PYM—You can do me a favor, Mandy.

AMANDA—What, Pym dear?

PYM—My editor in London has asked me to get a symposium of opinion over here on the question of whether, in the impending British crisis, every American will be prepared to do his duty. Your husband's name is on my list. I must find out whether he is one of those who might be so unpatriotic as to refuse. Can you fix it for me, Mandy?

AMANDA—Not so easy. Philo hates publicity and never gives interviews. But perhaps I can get him to stretch a point in your case. [To LINDA] Though I don't really know why I should do anything at all for Pym; he neglects me horribly. Does he neglect you?

LINDA—He's spasmodic. Either he rushes me—or ignores me.

AMANDA—He's quite uniform with me!

LINDA—Tonight I had to call him and practically force him to take me out to dinner.

PYM—If you arrange an interview for me with your husband, Mandy, I shall take you to lunch a week from Wednesday.

AMANDA—Done and done.

PYM—The reward is excessive, but I hate haggling. And now I shall leave you two adorable creatures together so you can tear your eyes out.

AMANDA—You're not going!

PYM—I am indeed!

AMANDA—But why? You've just come!

PYM—[Striking his forehead] I've just been struck by an idea. I've got to go somewhere private to put it down. I am a genius, you see, Mandy.

AMANDA—Really, Pym!

LINDA—Besides, I asked him not to stay.

AMANDA—But you didn't need him to bring you. You had only to ring up . . .

PYM—Good night, Linda. [He kisses her solemnly.]

LINDA—Good night, Pym.

PYM—Good night, Mandy. [He kisses her solemnly.]

AMANDA—Good night, you funny boy!

PYM—[Looks at them both appraisingly] I should give thirty guineas to overhear your conversation. I shall pray for you, Mandy, to be victorious.

AMANDA—What is he chattering about?

LINDA—I haven't the faintest idea.

PYM—In any event, I shall marry the survivor. If you both die in combat, I shall retire to a nunnery. [He goes out. A slight pause.]

LINDA—I adore Pym, don't you? So very gay and amusing.

AMANDA—Yes, he is. I'm very fond of him. Rather wastes himself though, doesn't he?

LINDA—That's not necessarily prodigal! [A moment's pause. MANDY lifts her eyebrows] I mean—I'm afraid that must have sounded malicious—but what I mean is that if people want to waste themselves, why shouldn't they?

AMANDA—I'm afraid I don't agree. That goes against my profoundest convictions . . .

LINDA—Does it?

AMANDA—Yes. I believe that people have an obligation—it sounds priggish to say it—a profound moral obligation to live up to the best in them—to realize themselves to the limit of their capacities.

LINDA—Well, don't you think they do?

AMANDA—Obviously they don't.

LINDA—How can one be sure? If Pym wants to fool around and be agreeable to ladies and write superficial pieces about America for an English tabloid, don't you think perhaps that that's all Pym is meant for?

AMANDA—[With her most ravishing smile] I'm afraid I don't.

LINDA—Why does he do it then?

AMANDA—Because he thinks it's smart—environment—early influence—all sorts of reasons. Pym definitely has a father complex!

LINDA—Has he?

AMANDA—Yes. As his father is a great man he has always been obsessed by the fear of never being able to surpass his father. When his father was Pym's age he was already marked for a great career. Failing that, Pym takes refuge in deprecating achievement altogether.

LINDA—Perhaps he deprecates it because he feels unable to achieve it, father or no father, and perhaps his instinct is justified.

AMANDA—[Smiles patiently] I'm afraid I don't agree.

LINDA—Can one add a cubit to one's stature? Personally, I agree with the authority that says you can't.

AMANDA—Oh, but I disagree. I disagree profoundly. People do it all the time. Great occasions make them, crises make them, love makes them. One is constantly called upon to extend oneself beyond one's capacities.

LINDA—Inflation. Is that good?

AMANDA—One must unearth one's latent powers—develop them.

LINDA—How nice to believe in these psychic trapdoors! Snap them open, and lo and behold—hidden treasure!

AMANDA—You put it very well.

LINDA—It's all so comforting!

AMANDA—History is full of people who have exceeded their capacities.

LINDA—No, perhaps they have merely expressed them.

AMANDA—We disagree. We disagree fundamentally. Isn't that delightful?

LINDA—Great fun! [A pause] You say—I gather—that Gay is in your library, working. May I ask—what he's working on?

AMANDA—[Innocently, permitting herself the assumption that LINDA knows] His new play.

LINDA—Really?

AMANDA—Well, of course . . .

LINDA—I didn't know he had a new play . . .

AMANDA—Really? Oh, I am sorry. I'm terribly sorry. I assumed of course . . .

LINDA—It's quite all right. I'm delighted, naturally. Do you know what it's about?

AMANDA—[Solemnly] It's about immortality.

LINDA—Really?

AMANDA—Yes.

LINDA—What on earth does Gay know about immortality?

AMANDA—What does anyone know about immortality—except by intuition?

LINDA—But, Gay—do you know his other work?

AMANDA—But this is altogether different from his other work—profounder—richer—more provocative! I think it's great. I think you'll be proud.

LINDA—Is it profound or is it merely—obscure?

AMANDA—Wait till you read it. He got his second-act line—in this very room—not more than thirty minutes ago. And just now—he sent for me in the library—to tell me he'd got his idea for the third act. He sees it through now—to the end.

LINDA—Why didn't he tell me about it, do you suppose?

AMANDA—Because . . .

LINDA—Why?

AMANDA—No. I mustn't say it.

LINDA—But you must. Please, Amanda.

AMANDA—I am so afraid you'll misunderstand my motive.

LINDA—But I assure you I won't. I'll understand it perfectly.

AMANDA—[Facing her bravely] Because—there's no part in it for you.

LINDA—[After a moment] But that's so silly. Naturally, I love to act in Gay's plays. I love to speak his lines. But if he's written a play and it's good I'll be very happy. I can get another play. I can do a revival. The important thing for Gay is to keep working. Surely he knows that and that I know it. Surely . . .

AMANDA—Perhaps he thought . . .

LINDA—What?

AMANDA—That you wouldn't be sympathetic to this play?

LINDA—But why shouldn't I be? I am really hurt.

AMANDA—I'm sorry—I'm terribly sorry—I shouldn't have . . .

LINDA—But you aren't in the least sorry. You are very happy. You have probably never in your life been so ecstatically happy as you are at this moment.

AMANDA—But, Mrs. Esterbrook, really . . .

LINDA—[Cheerfully] Call me Linda! Shall we be honest with each other? It's enormously difficult, I know. But shall we try? What harm can it do you possibly? You enjoy inspiring Gay. That is to say you enjoy sleeping with him. I can understand that perfectly.

AMANDA—It's not true. I mean we haven't . . . It's not true.

LINDA—If it's not true already then it's imminent. You'll inspire him into it. I hate it and I don't mind telling you I'm intensely jealous. Sleep with him if you like, but for pity's sake don't ruin his style. Immortality! What on earth's Gay doing writing about immortality! Why, when he can write about life and about love and can make people laugh in the theatre, do you push him off the deep end to write about immortality which, at best, is dubious and inhuman? Really, Mandy!

AMANDA—[The cello vibrates slowly and richly] We can't really talk because we have nothing—absolutely nothing—in common.

LINDA—What about Gay?

AMANDA—In my poor puny way I am only trying—at a time when life is a danse
macabre. . .

LINDA—So that's where he got that!

AMANDA—[Goes on tranquilly] An inferno of hatreds and perils to bring his work into some relation to the period in which he is living. I want him to stop fiddling while Rome burns. I am afraid you are selfish, Linda.

LINDA—Of course I am. What are you?

AMANDA—I feel that Gay might be great . . .

LINDA—What's the matter with him now?

AMANDA—His work is brilliant but—I have told him so myself—trivial.

LINDA—Why? Because he writes comedy? I'd rather have him write trivial comedy than shallow tragedy. The truth is, Mandy—let's face it—you see yourself as an Influence—with a capital I—What vanity!

AMANDA—I do. I am not ashamed of it. It is the best a woman can be. To inspire a brilliant man to become a great one—I confess it—yes—this would be happiness for me. History is full of women who . . .

LINDA—I doubt it. They may have stimulated men—to réclame, to publicity, to success, yes—but I don't believe in First Aids to greatness. That's something else again. I don't believe in this romantic myth that men need women to inspire them. Oftener I think they succeed in spite of women—just as poets make music of their frustrations. And the same goes for women. They succeed—when they do—without men or in spite of them. I know my own poor case—I lifted myself up by the bootstraps, out of nothing, not for any man, but just to survive, just by obeying some irresistible spring of vitality within myself that wouldn't let me be!

AMANDA—But did you never think—when you were planning some piece of work, some piece of acting—unconsciously perhaps—did you never think: he will like this, he will like that . . .

LINDA—No, I didn't. Men were a by-product, part of the dividend of success.

AMANDA—Look at the Curies!

LINDA—Their passion for science made their work inevitable. It's wonderful they found each other for personal reasons. It was a heaven-sent collaboration, but I am very much afraid, Mandy dear, that yours with Gay has a different source.

AMANDA—We're at opposite poles.

LINDA—We are indeed. I wish I were at yours. [A pause.]

AMANDA—You and Philo are so alike.

LINDA—Are we?

AMANDA—Each of you isolated in your own strengths, in your own careers, your own egotisms.

LINDA—Why don't you inspire Philo?

AMANDA—You are laughing at me. But I will answer you.

LINDA—Did you never?

AMANDA—Philo is beyond reach. I have done everything I could to make him—outgiving. In the beginning I thought I could help him. That's why I married him.

LINDA—[With unconcealed malice] Is that the only reason?

AMANDA—I don't expect you to understand.

LINDA—I wish you'd make me. Why do you always pick arrivés to inspire? Your husband was rich and successful when you married him. My husband is an established writer, temporarily in the dumps. Why don't you stimulate to greatness someone obscure? Wouldn't that be more exciting?

AMANDA—The artist who has arrived and who begins to doubt his talent—there is no more poignant tragedy than that.

LINDA—If this play you're drawing out of Gay like a bad tooth turns out to be good I'll never forgive you, Mandy!

AMANDA—You are honest, at any rate.

LINDA—Yes. I wish you could be. Come on—try it—just for the novelty.

AMANDA—[Stiffly—she finds herself suddenly on the verge of tears] I beg your
pardon . . .

LINDA—Come on, Mandy, let your hair down. It won't hurt you with Gay. You don't really believe this act of yours, do you? You can't possibly. You've got Gay through this mystic spray you shed about—this rainbow belief in the profundity of his literary powers . . .

AMANDA—[Nearer still to tears] How dare you! How dare you!

LINDA—It's all in fun—come clean. I wish you could teach me the technique, Mandy—all this pastel theorizing—wonderful dim lighting for sex.

AMANDA—[Hurt to the quick, throwing all discretion to the winds suddenly] I understand now—I understand everything now!

LINDA—What do you understand?

AMANDA—He's always talking about your clairvoyance, your critical faculty of which he's afraid, your pitiless clarity . . .

LINDA—My God, Mandy, you make me sound like an X-ray!

AMANDA—You are! You've shriveled him!

LINDA—Is Gay shriveled? He looked awfully well this afternoon.

AMANDA—You have—in his soul! You can't understand faith or hope—you can't understand anything but foolish, empty laughter. You're destructive. You're merciless. If I have furnished him with an oasis where he can escape to brood and dream, I'm happy—do you hear—proud and happy!

LINDA—[Aloud to herself in sudden dreadful revelation] My God! She believes it! I'm sunk!

AMANDA—It is inconceivable to you that anyone can be sincere. You can't believe the truth. You attribute the most sordid motives to everything. . . . [She breaks down and weeps. LINDA looks at her with detachment, with admiration and wonder.]

LINDA—And besides all that—you can cry. I am certainly and completely sunk!

AMANDA—You're horrid—you're hateful and horrid—I—I—hate you! [Sobbing, she rushes out of the room to the library. LINDA looks after her. From her lips escapes involuntarily an exclamation of admiration at her rival's self-absorption, her capacity for self-justification, her talent for being aggrieved. She puts her hands on her hips and stares after AMANDA. Presently she becomes aware that her position is somewhat anomalous: that she is alone in AMANDA'S house—that there is nothing left for her to do but go—that she is scarcely in position even to say "Good night" to her hostess. She is unhappy and jealous—but she decides to make the best of it. Standing there alone in MANDY'S beautifully lit living room she blows a valedictory kiss toward the library. Suddenly, herself overcome by an emotion her poise can no longer avert, she turns to go. She is already at the hall door when GAY comes in. GAY is dark with anger.]

GAY—What have you done to Mandy?

LINDA—Disfigured her beyond recognition. Scratched her eyes out. Didn't you notice?

GAY—[Inexorable, quivering with anger] What did you say to her?

LINDA—Don't remember.

GAY—She's sobbing!

LINDA—How nice for her! Wish I could!

GAY—You spy on me. You come here to spy on me. And you must have said something unforgivable to Mandy. I know your capacity for that. She's devastated!

LINDA—Not so devastated she lost her sense of direction. She made straight for the library.

GAY—It's her library. She can make for it if she wants to!

LINDA—[Her voice, involuntarily, edged with malice, though she knows at the moment this is not the profitable line] I hear you're—collaborating!

GAY—This is the end, Linda!

LINDA—Isn't that a bit—summary?

GAY—It's the end! I can't stand it any more. I can't stand you any more. Your beautiful superiority. I loathe it. I'm sick of it. You can't even be humanly jealous.

LINDA—That's what you think.

GAY—Mandy's human at least.

LINDA—Obviously.

GAY—I hate your detachment. I hate your coolness. I hate your destructive critical nature.

LINDA—You've acquired Mandy's vocabulary. Pity. So cliché.

GAY—[Though he hasn't realized it before] I am going to marry Mandy.

LINDA—My blessings!

GAY—You think I'm joking!

LINDA—I think you're childish.

GAY—I know you do.

LINDA—You're most endearing trait.

GAY—I've always known it . . .

LINDA—It's happened then, has it? We're through.

GAY—[Definitely] Yes.

LINDA—I can't believe it somehow. Why? Why? You're not in love with her. You can't be in love with her. I simply can't believe you're in love with her!

GAY—[The more bitter, at what LINDA is saying is true] Can't you? Nevertheless, I am—madly in love with her!

LINDA—[Wistfully] Would you love me, Gay, if I praised you for attributes you haven't got? Would you love me if I could cry? I'll practice.

GAY—Always clear! Always articulate! Sahara-lighting!

LINDA—No vaguely lit oasis, like this that Mandy offers. What can I do? I'm helpless against her. And the worst of it is—she's sincere—as fanatics are sincere. What can I do?

GAY—[Bent on hurting her, bent on destroying her] I'll tell you what you can do! You can preen yourself! You can revel in your superiority! You can pity us for this childish emotion which has involved us. You don't need me. You don't need anybody. You're self-sufficient. You can return to the narcissism which satisfies you really, though you pretend it doesn't! [She it deeply wounded, frightened, at his bitterness.]

LINDA—Gay! Please don't say things like that to me.

GAY—[Beyond appeal] You can return to gaze at yourself forever in a full-length mirror!

LINDA—Gay—what is it? What's come over you? Gay . . . [He says nothing, stands there trembling with anger, looking at her with hate in his eyes. A painful and at the same time comforting truth forces itself in on her] Gay! You're miserable! You're unhappy! This isn't the ecstasy of new-found love . . .

GAY—[Almost shouting his denial] It is!

LINDA—Gay, what is it? Gay. . . [She is close to him, her arms extended out to him, to embrace him, to shield him.]

GAY—[In a fury at being discovered—away from her] Don't come near me! Leave me alone! Don't question me! I can't bear you, I tell you. Quit spying on me! [He flings out through the library door and again LINDA finds herself alone. An overpowering and thrilling realization comes over her first of all—that GAY is not really in love with MANDY—that he wants only for some obscure reason to hurt her and punish himself. She is filled suddenly with hope, with a kind of joy, with a determination to fight. PHILO comes in.]

PHILO—Good evening!

LINDA—[Delighted to see him] Oh, you, hello! I'm delighted to see you.

PHILO—[Very formal] Thank you.

LINDA—No, but I am. I was never so happy to see anyone in all my life.

PHILO—You are impulsive.

LINDA—I feel I've known you forever, Philo.

PHILO—You haven't.

LINDA—That's how I feel. That's how you feel. You are my only friend in this house—in all the world. Philo, I've just found out . . . What do you think I've found out? [He expresses no curiosity] You were right, Philo, this afternoon. Mandy and my husband are—engaged. Yet he doesn't love her. I'm sure of that. He just wants, for some obscure reason, to hurt me and punish himself.

PHILO—He has chosen an excellent way to achieve that.

LINDA—[Deflated suddenly] Now I come to think of it—I'm in despair, Philo.

PHILO—Don't indulge yourself.

LINDA—I'm convinced he doesn't love her; he's just miserable.

PHILO—Perfect for Mandy. So was I.

LINDA—Really?

PHILO—[Regrets having revealed even so much] I'm sorry.

LINDA—He can talk out his misery to her because she isn't his wife. He can't talk to me because I am. Why is that, Philo? Why can't married people talk to each other?

PHILO—Don't ask me metaphysical questions.

LINDA—[All her resources rising to the surface] I am going to fight, Philo. I am going to make a fight. Will you help me?

PHILO—Up to a point.

LINDA—Are you sleepy?

PHILO—If I were I shouldn't have come down . . .

LINDA—Do you play games?

PHILO—Chess.

LINDA—I should have thought so. . . . I don't unfortunately. Any other game? There's a backgammon board. Do you play backgammon?

PHILO—Yes.

LINDA—Will you play backgammon with me? [With a twinkle in her eye, gay again] You see, Philo, I can't really leave here tonight without saying good night to my hostess. I'm too well bred. And I can't possibly interrupt her just now. She and Gay are collaborating so hard. I mustn't interrupt the creative process. [During this she is getting the backgammon board into place and the chairs] At the same time—I don't mind telling you, Philo—I want a good excuse to outstay her. [By this time they are sitting at the backgammon board and have started a game.]

PHILO—Very well.

LINDA—Philo, you're a darling!

PHILO—Don't be familiar!

LINDA—How you enjoy being crotchety! You don't fool me, you know. You don't fool me a bit! [He says nothing] Mandy says you and I are alike. Two strong characters. I don't feel my strength just now. My strength is in abeyance. I don't mind telling you, Philo darling, that I'm just hanging on by the skin of my teeth! [He still says nothing. Suddenly she finds him looking at her, staring at her] Am I keeping you up by any chance?

PHILO—[Snaps irritatedly at her] You already have . . .

LINDA—[Amazed] What?

PHILO—[Same voice] It's way past my bed time! Why do you suppose I came downstairs?

LINDA—[Her amazement growing that he is aware of her at all and for even a moment as a human being] Philo!

PHILO—[Severely] Your move, Miss Paige! [She moves abruptly, with only a quick glance at the counters and her eyes returning instantly to his. By this time, though, his gaze is fixed hard on the board.]

Quick Curtain

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