is only one excuse for you. You are not fully responsible for your actions. Like all advanced people, you have got neurasthenia.
CHARTERIS (appalled). Great Heavens! what’s that?
CUTHBERTSON. I decline to explain. You know as well as I do. I am going downstairs now to order lunch. I shall order it for three; but the third place is for Paramore, whom I have invited, not for you. (He goes out through the left hand door.)
CHARTERIS (putting his hand on Craven’s shoulder). Come, Craven; advise me. You’ve been in this sort of fix yourself probably.
CRAVEN. Charteris: no woman writes such letters to a man unless he has made advances to her.
CHARTERIS (mournfully). How little you know the world, Colonel! The New Woman is not like that.
CRAVEN. I can only give you very old fashioned advice, my boy; and that is that it’s well to be off with the Old Woman before you’re on with the New. I’m sorry you told me. You might have waited for my death: it’s not far off now. (His head droops again. Julia and Paramore enter on the right. Julia stops as she catches sight of Charteris, her face clouding and her breast heaving. Paramore, seeing the Colonel apparently ill, hurries down to him with the bedside manner in full play.)
CHARTERIS (seeing Julia). Oh Lord! (He retreats under the lee of the revolving bookstand.)
PARAMORE (sympathetically to the Colonel). Allow me. (Takes his wrist and begins to count his pulse.)
CRAVEN (looking up). Eh? (Withdraws his hand and rises rather crossly.) No, Paramore: it’s not my liver now: it’s private business. (A chase now begins between Julia and Charteris, all the more exciting to them because the huntress and her prey must alike conceal the real object of their movements from the others. Charteris first makes for the right hand door. Julia immediately moves back to it, barring his path. He doubles back round the bookstand, setting it whirling as he makes for the left door, Julia crossing in pursuit of him. He is about to escape when he is cut off by the return of Cuthbertson. He turns back and sees Julia close upon him. There being nothing else for it, he bolts up into the recess to the left of the fireplace.)
CUTHBERTSON. Good morning, Miss Craven. (They shake hands.) Won’t you join us at lunch? Paramore’s coming too.
JULIA. Thanks: I shall be very pleased. (She goes up with affected purposelessness towards the recess. Charteris, almost trapped in it, crosses to the right hand recess by way of the fender, knocking down the fire irons with a crash as he does so.)
CRAVEN (who has crossed to the whirling bookcase and stopped it). What the dickens are you doing there, Charteris?
CHARTERIS. Nothing. It’s such a confounded room to get about in.
JULIA (maliciously). Yes, isn’t it. (She is moving back to guard the right hand door, when Cuthbertson appears at it.)
CUTHBERTSON. May I take you down? (He offers her his arm.)
JULIA. No, really: you know it’s against the rules of the club to coddle women in any way. Whoever is nearest to the door goes first.
CUTHBERTSON. Oh well, if you insist. Come, gentlemen: let us go to lunch in the Ibsen fashion — the unsexed fashion. (He goes out on the left followed by Paramore, laughing. Craven goes last. He turns at the door to see whether Julia is coming, and stops when he sees she is not.)
CRAVEN. Come, Julia.
JULIA (with patronising affection). Yes, Daddy, dear, presently. (Charteris is meanwhile stealing to the right hand door.) Don’t wait for me: I’ll come in a moment. (The Colonel hesitates.) It’s all right, Daddy.
CRAVEN (very gravely). Don’t be long, my dear. (He goes out.)
CHARTERIS. I’m off. (Makes a dash for the right hand door.)
JULIA (darting at him and seizing his wrist). Aren’t you coming?
CHARTERIS. No. Unhand me Julia. (He tries to get away: she holds him.) If you don’t let me go, I’ll scream for help.
JULIA (reproachfully). Leonard! (He breaks away from her.) Oh, how can you be so rough with me, dear. Did you get my letter?
CHARTERIS. Burnt it — (she turns away, struck to the heart, and buries her face in her hands) — along with hers.
JULIA (quickly turning again). Hers! Has she written to you?
CHARTERIS. Yes, to break off with me on your account.
JULIA (her eyes gleaming). Ah!
CHARTERIS. You are pleased. Wretch! Now you have lost the last scrap of my regard. (He turns to go, but is stopped by the return of Sylvia. Julia turns away and stands pretending to read a paper which she picks up from the table.)
SYLVIA (offhandedly). Hallo, Charteris: how are you getting on? (She takes his arm familiarly and walks down the room with him.) Have you seen Grace Tranfield this morning? (Julia drops the paper and comes a step nearer to listen.) You generally know where she is to be found.
CHARTERIS. I shall never know any more, Sylvia. She’s quarrelled with me.
SYLVIA. Sylvia! How often am I to tell you that I am not Sylvia at the club?
CHARTERIS. I forgot. I beg your pardon, Craven, old chap (slaps her on the shoulder).
SYLVIA. That’s better — a little overdone, but better.
JULIA. Don’t be a fool, Silly.
SYLVIA. Remember, Julia, if you please, that here we are members of the club, not sisters. I don’t take liberties with you here on family grounds: don’t you take any with me. (She goes to the settee and resumes her former place.)
CHARTERIS. Quite right, Craven. Down with the tyranny of the elder sister!
JULIA. You ought to know better than to encourage a child to make herself ridiculous, Leonard, even at my expense.
CHARTERIS (seating himself on the edge of the table). Your lunch will be cold, Julia. (Julia is about to retort furiously when she is checked by the reappearance of Cuthbertson at the left hand door.)
CUTHBERTSON. What has become of you, Miss Craven? Your father is getting quite uneasy. We’re all waiting for you.
JULIA. So I have just been reminded, thank you. (She goes out angrily past him, Sylvia looking round to see.)
CUTHBERTSON (looking first after her, then at Charteris). More neurasthenia. (He follows her.)
SYLVIA (jumping up on her knees on the settee and speaking over the back of it). What’s up, Charteris? Julia been making love to you?
CHARTERIS (speaking to her over his shoulder). No. Blowing me up for making love to Grace.
SYLVIA. Serve you right. You are an awful devil for philandering.
CHARTERIS (calmly). Do you consider it good club form to talk that way to a man who might nearly be your father?
SYLVIA (knowingly). Oh, I know you, my lad.
CHARTERIS. Then
