The Man from Home by Harry Leon Wilson (book series to read .TXT) 📕
- Author: Harry Leon Wilson
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[Turns with a short, bitter laugh, walks up stage, then comes back.]
By Jove! I shouldn't be surprised if you consent to the settlement, too!
[solemnly]
My son, I shouldn't be surprised if I did.
Is the world topsy-turvy? Have I gone crazy?
[With accusing finger pointed at PIKE.]
I'll bet my soul that'll disgust her as much as it does me!
My son, I shouldn't be surprised if it would.
[staring at him]
By the Lord, but you play a queer game, Mr. Pike!
Oh, I'm jest crossing the Rubicon. Your father used to have a saying: "If you're going to cross the Rubicon, cross it. Don't wade out to the middle and stand there; you only get hell from both banks."
[Enter LADY CREECH from the hotel.]
[testily]
Mr. Granger-Simpson, have you seen my nephew?[pg 168]
No; I've rather avoided that, if you don't mind my saying so.
Mr. Granger-Simpson!
I'm sorry, Lady Creech, but I've had a most awful shaking-up, and I'm almost thinking of going back home with Mr. Pike. I rather think he's about right in his ideas. You know we abused him, not only for himself, but for his vulgar friend; yet his vulgar friend turned out to be a grand-duke—and look at what our friends turned out to be.
[Goes rapidly into the hotel.]
[ALMERIC'S voice is heard from the grove. "Come along! There's a good fellow!"]
Isn't that Almeric?
Here he comes, shamed and bending under the blow!
[ALMERIC enters from the grove, leading a bull terrier pup.]
Mariano, Mariano—I say, Mariano! I say, Aunty, ain't he rippin'? Lucky I got there just as I did—a bounder wanted to buy him five minutes later.
[MARIANO enters from hotel.]
Mariano, do you think you could be trusted to wash him?[pg 169]
Wash him!
Tepid water, you know; and mind he doesn't take cold; and just a little milk afterward—nothing else but milk, you understand. You be deuced careful, I mean to say.
[with dignity]
I will give him to the porter.
[He carries the animal into the hotel.]
Almeric, really, there are more important things, you know.
But you don't seem to realize I might have missed him altogether. I think I'm rather to be congratulated, you know. What?
I think you are, my son. I have given my consent.
Rippin'!
And the settlement?
The settlement also—everything!
[ETHEL enters from the hotel, followed by HORACE.]
[greatly relieved and overjoyed, starting toward ETHEL]
Ethel, my dear!
[cheerfully]
I told you it would all be plain sailing, Aunty. There was nothing to worry about.
[continuing, to ETHEL]
All shall be [pg 170] forgiven, my child. I am too pleased, too overjoyed in your good-fortune to remember any little bickerings between us. The sky has cleared wonderfully. Everything is settled.
Yes; it's all over; my guardian has consented.
Of course I never worried about it—but I fancy it will be a weight off the Governor's mind. I'll see that a wire catches him at Naples—and he'll be glad to know what became of that arrangement about the convict fellow, too.
[very seriously]
Almeric, I think it's noble to be brave in trouble, but—
[puzzled]
I say, you know, you've really got me!
I mean that I admire you for your pluck, for seeming unconcerned under disgrace, but—
Disgrace? Why, who's disgraced—not even the Governor, as I see it. You got that chap called off, didn't you?
Whom do you mean?
Why, that convict chap—didn't you send him away? You bought him off, didn't you, so that he won't talk? Gave him money not to bother us?
[rising, and turning on him indignantly]
Why, Heaven pity you! Do you think that?[pg 171]
Oh—what?—he wouldn't agree to be still? Oh, I say, that'll be rather a pill for the Governor—he'll be a bit worried, you know.
Don't you see that it's time for you to worry a little for yourself? That you've got to begin at once to do something worthy that will obliterate this shame—to begin a career—to work—to work!
[puzzled]
But? But I mean to say, though—but what for? What possible need will there be for an extreme like that? Don't you see, in the first place, there's the settlement—
[aghast]
Settlement! You talk of settlement, now.
[angrily]
Settlement, certainly there's the settlement!
What for?
Why, don't you understand—you're to be the Countess of Hawcastle, aren't you?
Why—hasn't he told you?—the only obstacle on earth between us was this fellow's consent to the settlement, and he's just given it.
[dazed and angry]
Do you mean to say he's consented to that!
Why, to be sure—he's just consented with his own lips—didn't you?
[gravely]
I did.[pg 172]
Don't you see, don't you hear that—he's consented? He didn't mumble his words—don't you hear him?
I do, and disbelieve my own ears. Yesterday, when I wanted something I thought of value—and that was a name—he refused to let me buy it—to-day, when I know that that name is less than nothing, worse than nothing—he bids me give my fortune for it. What manner of man is this! And you,
[to LADY CREECH and ALMERIC]
what are you that after last night you come to me and ask a settlement?
[angrily]
Certainly we do—would you expect to enter a family like this and bring nothing?
I can't see that the situation has changed since yesterday. I don't stick out for the precise amount the Governor said. If it ought to be less on account of that little affair last night—why, we should be the last people in the world to haggle over a few thousand pounds—
[with a cry of rage and relief]
Oh! That is the final word of my humiliation! I felt that you were in shame and dishonor, and, because of that, I was ready to keep my word—to stand by you, to help you make yourself into something like a man—to [pg 173] give my life to you. That you permitted the sacrifice was enough! Now you ask me to PAY for the privilege of making it, I am released! I am free! I am not that man's property to give away!
[violently]
You're beside yourself. Isn't this what we've been wanting all the time?
But slow up a bit—didn't you say you'd stick?
Any promise I ever made to you is a thousand times cancelled. This is final!
[With concentrated rage, turning to PIKE.]
And as for you—never presume to speak to me again!
[to LADY CREECH]
Most extraordinary girl—she's rather dreadful, isn't she?
[with agitation]
Give me your arm, Almeric.
[They go into the hotel.]
[to PIKE]
What have you to say to me?
[PIKE raises his hands slowly, with palms outward, and drops them.]
What explanation have you to make?
None.
That's because you don't care what I [pg 174] think of you.
[Bitterly.]
Indeed, you've already shown that, when you were willing to give me up to those people, and to let me pay them for taking me! You let me romanticize to you about honor and duty and sympathy—about my efforts to make that creature a man—and you pretended to sympathize with me, and you knew all the time it was only the money they were after!
[humbly]
Well, I shouldn't be surprised.
Didn't you have the faint little understanding of me enough to see that their asking for money, now—would horrify me? Didn't you know that your consenting to it, leaving me free to give it to them, would release me—make me free to deny everything to them?
[slowly]
Well, I shouldn't be surprised if I had seen that.
[staggered]
You mean you've been saving me again from myself, from my silliness, from my romanticism, that you've given me another revelation of the falsity, the unreality of my attitude toward these people, and toward life.
[placatingly]
No, no!
[vehemently]
You'd always say that, you'd always deny it—it's like you.
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