on?
BELINDA (mildly). Well, darling, you knew all the time that I was your wife, and you've been making love to me and leading me on.
TREMAYNE. That's different.
BELINDA. That's _just_ what the late Mr. Tremayne said, and then he slammed the door and went straight off to the Rocky Mountains and shot bears; and I didn't see him again for eighteen years.
TREMAYNE (remorsefully). Darling, I was a fool then, and I'm a fool now.
BELINDA. I was a fool then, but I'm not such a fool now--I'm not going to let you go. It's quite time I married and settled down.
TREMAYNE. You darling! How did you find out who I was?
BELINDA (awkwardly). Well, it was rather curious, darling. (After a pause.) It was April, and I felt all sort of Aprily, and--and--there was the garden all full of daffodils--and--and there was Mr. Baxter--the one we left in the library--knowing all about moles. He's probably got the M volume down now. Well, we were talking about them one day, and I happened to say that the late Mr. Tremayne--that was you, darling--had rather a peculiar one on his arm. And then he happened to see it this morning and told me about it.
TREMAYNE. What an extraordinary story!
BELINDA. Yes, darling; it's really much more extraordinary than that. I think perhaps I'd better tell you the rest of it another time. (Coaxingly.) Now show me where the nasty lion scratched you. (TREMAYNE pulls up his sleeve.) Oh! (She kisses his arm.) You shouldn't have left Chelsea, darling.
TREMAYNE. I should never have found you if I hadn't.
BELINDA (squeezing his arm). No, Jack, you wouldn't. (After a pause.) I--I've got another little surprise for you if--if you're ready for it. (Standing up) Properly speaking, I ought to be wearing white. I shall certainly stand up while I'm telling you. (Modestly.) Darling, we have a daughter--our little Delia.
TREMAYNE. Delia? You said her name was Robinson.
BELINDA. Yes, darling, but you said yours was. One always takes one's father's name. Unless, of course, you were Lord Robinson.
TREMAYNE. But you said her name was Robinson before you--oh, never mind about that. A daughter? Belinda, how could you let me go and not tell me?
BELINDA. You forget how you'd slammed the door. It isn't the sort of thing you shout through the window to a man on his way to America.
TREMAYNE (taking her in his arms). Oh, Belinda, don't let me ever go away again.
BELINDA. I'm not going to, Jack. I'm going to settle down into a staid old married woman.
TREMAYNE. Oh no, you're not. You're going on just as you did before. And I'm going to propose to you every April, and win you, over all the other men in love with you.
BELINDA. You darling!
[DELIA and DEVENISH come in from the garden.]
TREMAYNE (quietly to BELINDA). Our daughter.
DELIA (going up to TREMAYNE). You're my father.
TREMAYNE. If you don't mind very much, Delia.
DELIA. You've been away a long time.
TREMAYNE. I'll do my best to make up for it.
BELINDA. Delia, darling, I think you might kiss your poor old father.
(As the does to, DEVENISH suddenly and hastily kisses BELINDA on the cheek.)
DEVENISH. Just in case you're going to be my mother-in-law.
TREMAYNE. We seem to be rather a family party.
BELINDA (suddenly). There! We've forgotten Mr. Baxter again.
BAXTER (who has come in quietly with a book in his hand). Oh, don't mind about me, Mrs. Tremayne. I've enjoyed myself immensely. (Referring to his book.) I have been collecting some most valuable information on (looking round at them) lunacy in the--er--county of _Devonshire_.
THE RED FEATHERS
AN OPERETTA IN ONE ACT
[In the living-room of a country-house, half farm, half manor, a MOTHER and her DAUGHTER are sitting. It is any year you please-- between, let us say, the day when the fiddle first came to England and the day when Romance left it. As for the time of the year, let us call it May. Oh yes, it is certainly May, and about twelve o'clock, and the DAUGHTER is singing at the spinet, while her MOTHER is at her needlework. Through the lattice windows the murmur of a stream can be heard, on whose banks--but we shall come to that directly. Let us listen now to what the DAUGHTER is singing:]
Life passes by. I do not know its pleasure or its pain-- The Spring was here, the Spring is here again, The Spring will die.
Life passes by. The doors of Pain and Pleasure open wide, The crowd streams in--and I am left outside. ... They know; not I.
[You don't like it? Neither did her Mother.]
MOTHER (looking up from her work). Yes, I should call that a melancholy song, dear.
DAUGHTER. It is sung by a melancholy person, Mother.
MOTHER. Why are you that, child?
DAUGHTER (getting up). I want so much that I shall never have.
MOTHER. Well, so do we all.
DAUGHTER (impatiently). Oh, why does nothing ever happen? We sit here all day, and we sing or do our embroidery, and we go to bed, and the next day we get up and do the same things over again, and so it goes on. Mother, is that all there is in the world?
MOTHER. It's all there is in our world.
DAUGHTER. Are we so very poor?
MOTHER. We have the house--and very little else.
DAUGHTER. Oh, I wish that we were _really_ poor--
MOTHER. You needn't wish, child.
DAUGHTER. Oh, but I mean so that it wouldn't matter what clothes we wore; so that we could wander over the hills and down into the valleys, and sleep perhaps in a barn and bathe ourselves in the brook next morning, and--
MOTHER. I don't think I should like that very much. Perhaps I'm peculiar.
DAUGHTER.
