Dale. Oh, it’s the reflection of my glory that has guided you here, then?
Ventnor. It’s a spirit in my feet that has led me, at the first opportunity, to the most delightful spot I know.
Mrs. Dale. Oh, the first opportunity—!
Ventnor. I might have seen you very often before; but never just in the right way.
Mrs. Dale. Is this the right way?
Ventnor. It depends on you to make it so.
Mrs. Dale. What a responsibility! What shall I do?
Ventnor. Talk to me—make me think you’re a little glad to see me; give me some tea and a cigarette; and say you’re out to everyone else.
Mrs. Dale. Is that all? (She hands him a cup of tea.) The cigarettes are at your elbow—. And do you think I shouldn’t have been glad to see you before?
Ventnor. No; I think I should have been too glad to see you.
Mrs. Dale. Dear me, what precautions! I hope you always wear goloshes when it looks like rain and never by any chance expose yourself to a draught. But I had an idea that poets courted the emotions—
Ventnor. Do novelists?
Mrs. Dale. If you ask me—on paper!
Ventnor. Just so; that’s safest. My best things about the sea have been written on shore. (He looks at her thoughtfully.) But it wouldn’t have suited us in the old days, would it?
Mrs. Dale (sighing). When we were real people!
Ventnor. Real people?
Mrs. Dale. Are you, now? I died years ago. What you see before you is a figment of the reporter’s brain—a monster manufactured out of newspaper paragraphs, with ink in its veins. A keen sense of copyright is my nearest approach to an emotion.
Ventnor (sighing). Ah, well, yes—as you say, we’re public property.
Mrs. Dale. If one shared equally with the public! But the last shred of my identity is gone.
Ventnor. Most people would be glad to part with theirs on such terms. I have followed your work with immense interest. Immolation is a masterpiece. I read it last summer when it first came out.
Mrs. Dale (with a shade less warmth). Immolation has been out three years.
Ventnor. Oh, by Jove—no? Surely not—But one is so overwhelmed—one loses count. (Reproachfully.) Why have you never sent me your books?
Mrs. Dale. For that very reason.
Ventnor (deprecatingly). You know I didn’t mean it for you! And my first book—do you remember—was dedicated to you.
Mrs. Dale. Silver Trumpets—
Ventnor (much interested). Have you a copy still, by any chance? The first edition, I mean? Mine was stolen years ago. Do you think you could put your hand on it?
Mrs. Dale (taking a small shabby book from the table at her side). It’s here.
Ventnor (eagerly). May I have it? Ah, thanks. This is very interesting. The last copy sold in London for £40, and they tell me the next will fetch twice as much. It’s quite introuvable.
Mrs. Dale. I know that. (A pause. She takes the book from him, opens it, and reads, half to herself—)
_How much we two have seen together, Of other eyes unwist, Dear as in days of leafless weather The willow’s saffron mist,
Strange as the hour when Hesper swings A-sea in beryl green, While overhead on dalliant wings The daylight hangs serene,
And thrilling as a meteor’s fall Through depths of lonely sky, When each to each two watchers call: I saw it!—So did I._
Ventnor. Thin, thin—the troubadour tinkle. Odd how little promise there is in first volumes!
Mrs. Dale (with irresistible emphasis). I thought there was a distinct promise in this!
Ventnor (seeing his mistake). Ah—the one you would never let me fulfil? (Sentimentally.) How inexorable you were! You never dedicated a book to me.
Mrs. Dale. I hadn’t begun to write when we were—dedicating things to each other.
Ventnor. Not for the public—but you wrote for me; and, wonderful as you are, you’ve never written anything since that I care for half as much as—
Mrs. Dale (interested). Well?
Ventnor. Your letters.
Mrs. Dale (in a changed voice). My letters—do you remember them?
Ventnor. When I don’t, I reread them.
Mrs. Dale (incredulous). You have them still?
Ventnor (unguardedly). You haven’t mine, then?
Mrs. Dale (playfully). Oh, you were a celebrity already. Of course I kept them! (Smiling.) Think what they are worth now! I always keep them locked up in my safe over there. _(She indicates a cabinet.)
Ventnor (after a pause)_. I always carry yours with me.
Mrs. Dale (laughing). You—
Ventnor. Wherever I go. (A longer pause. She looks at him fixedly.) I have them with me now.
Mrs. Dale (agitated). You—have them with you—now?
Ventnor (embarrassed). Why not? One never knows—
Mrs. Dale. Never knows—?
Ventnor (humorously). Gad—when the bank-examiner may come round. You forget I’m a married man.
Mrs. Dale. Ah—yes.
Ventnor (sits down beside her). I speak to you as I couldn’t to anyone else—without deserving a kicking. You know how it all came about. (A pause.) You’ll bear witness that it wasn’t till you denied me all hope—
Mrs. Dale (a little breathless). Yes, yes—
Ventnor. Till you sent me from you—
Mrs. Dale. It’s so easy to be heroic when one is young! One doesn’t realize how long life is going to last afterward. (Musing.) Nor what weary work it is gathering up the fragments.
Ventnor. But the time comes when one sends for the china-mender, and has the bits riveted together, and turns the cracked side to the wall—
Mrs. Dale. And denies that the article was ever damaged?
Ventnor. Eh? Well, the great thing, you see, is to keep one’s self out of reach of the housemaid’s brush. (A pause.) If you’re married you can’t—always. (Smiling.) Don’t you hate to be taken down and dusted?
Mrs. Dale (with intention). You forget how long ago
