laws that protect you! when I think of how helpless nine out of ten young girls would be in the hands of you and my mother! the unmentionable woman and her capitalist bully—
CROFTS. [Livid.] Damn you!
VIVIE. You need not. I feel among the damned already. [She raises the latch of the gate to open it and go out. He follows her and puts his hand heavily on the top bar to prevent its opening.]
CROFTS. [Panting with fury.] Do you think I’ll put up with this from you, you young devil?
VIVIE. [Unmoved.] Be quiet. Some one will answer the bell. [Without flinching a step she strikes the bell with the back of her hand. It clangs harshly; and he starts back involuntarily. Almost immediately Frank appears at the porch with his rifle.]
FRANK. [With cheerful politeness.] Will you have the rifle, Viv; or shall I operate?
VIVIE. Frank: have you been listening?
FRANK. [Coming down into the garden.] Only for the bell, I assure you; so that you shouldn’t have to wait. I think I shewed great insight into your character, Crofts.
CROFTS. For two pins I’d take that gun from you and break it across your head.
FRANK. [Stalking him cautiously.] Pray don’t. I’m ever so careless in handling firearms. Sure to be a fatal accident, with a reprimand from the coroner’s jury for my negligence.
VIVIE. Put the rifle away, Frank: it’s quite unnecessary.
FRANK. Quite right, Viv. Much more sportsmanlike to catch him in a trap. [Crofts, understanding the insult, makes a threatening movement.] Crofts: there are fifteen cartridges in the magazine here; and I am a dead shot at the present distance and at an object of your size.
CROFTS. Oh, you needn’t be afraid. I’m not going to touch you.
FRANK. Ever so magnanimous of you under the circumstances! Thank you.
CROFTS. I’ll just tell you this before I go. It may interest you, since you’re so fond of one another. Allow me, Mister Frank, to introduce you to your half-sister, the eldest daughter of the Reverend Samuel Gardner. Miss Vivie: you half-brother. Good morning! [He goes out through the gate and along the road.]
FRANK. [After a pause of stupefaction, raising the rifle.] You’ll testify before the coroner that it’s an accident, Viv. [He takes aim at the retreating figure of Crofts. Vivie seizes the muzzle and pulls it round against her breast.]
VIVIE. Fire now. You may.
FRANK. [Dropping his end of the rifle hastily.] Stop! take care. [She lets it go. It falls on the turf.] Oh, you’ve given your little boy such a turn. Suppose it had gone off! ugh! [He sinks on the garden seat, overcome.]
VIVIE. Suppose it had: do you think it would not have been a relief to have some sharp physical pain tearing through me?
FRANK. [Coaxingly.] Take it ever so easy, dear Viv. Remember: even if the rifle scared that fellow into telling the truth for the first time in his life, that only makes us the babes in the woods in earnest. [He holds out his arms to her.] Come and be covered up with leaves again.
VIVIE. [With a cry of disgust.] Ah, not that, not that. You make all my flesh creep.
FRANK. Why, what’s the matter?
VIVIE. Goodbye. [She makes for the gate.]
FRANK. [Jumping up.] Hallo! Stop! Viv! Viv! [She turns in the gateway.] Where are you going to? Where shall we find you?
VIVIE. At Honoria Fraser’s chambers, 67 Chancery Lane, for the rest of my life. [She goes off quickly in the opposite direction to that taken by Crofts.]
FRANK. But I say—wait—dash it! [He runs after her.]
ACT IV
Honoria Fraser’s chambers in Chancery Lane. An office at the top of New Stone Buildings, with a plate-glass window, distempered walls, electric light, and a patent stove. Saturday afternoon. The chimneys of Lincoln’s Inn and the western sky beyond are seen through the window. There is a double writing table in the middle of the room, with a cigar box, ash pans, and a portable electric reading lamp almost snowed up in heaps of papers and books. This table has knee holes and chairs right and left and is very untidy. The clerk’s desk, closed and tidy, with its high stool, is against the wall, near a door communicating with the inner rooms. In the opposite wall is the door leading to the public corridor. Its upper panel is of opaque glass, lettered in black on the outside, Fraser and Warren. A baize screen hides the corner between this door and the window.]
Frank, in a fashionable light-colored coaching suit, with his stick, gloves, and white hat in his hands, is pacing up and down in the office. Somebody tries the door with a key.
FRANK. [Calling.] Come in. It’s not locked. [Vivie comes in, in her hat and jacket. She stops and stares at him.]
VIVIE. [Sternly.] What are you doing here?
FRANK. Waiting to see you. I’ve been here for hours. Is this the way you attend to your business? [He puts his hat and stick on the table, and perches himself with a vault on the clerk’s stool, looking at her with every appearance of being in a specially restless, teasing, flippant mood.]
VIVIE. I’ve been away exactly twenty minutes for a cup of tea. [She takes off her hat and jacket and hangs them behind the screen.] How did you get in?
FRANK. The staff had not left when I arrived. He’s gone to play cricket on Primrose Hill. Why don’t you employ a woman, and give your sex a chance?
VIVIE. What have you come for?
FRANK. [Springing off the stool and coming close to her.] Viv: lets go and enjoy the Saturday half-holiday somewhere, like the staff. What do you say to Richmond, and then a music hall, and a jolly supper?
VIVIE. Can’t afford it. I shall put in another six hours work before I go to bed.
FRANK. Can’t afford it, can’t we? Aha! Look here. [He takes out a handful of sovereigns and makes them chink.] Gold, Viv: gold!
VIVIE. Where did you get it?
FRANK. Gambling, Viv: gambling. Poker.
VIVIE. Pah! It’s meaner than stealing it. No: I’m not coming. [She sits down to work at the table, with her back to the glass door, and begins turning over the papers.]
FRANK. [Remonstrating piteously.] But, my dear Viv, I want to talk to you ever so seriously.
VIVIE. Very well: sit down in Honoria’s chair and talk here. I like ten minutes chat after tea. [He murmurs.] No use groaning: I’m inexorable. [He takes the opposite seat disconsolately.] Pass that cigar box, will you?
FRANK. [Pushing the cigar box across.] Nasty womanly habit. Nice men don’t do it any longer.
VIVIE. Yes: they object to the smell in the office; and we’ve had to take to cigarets. See! [She opens the box and takes out a cigaret, which she lights. She offers him one; but he shakes his head with a wry face. She settles herself comfortably in her chair, smoking.] Go ahead.
FRANK.
