BENTLEY. [rising reluctantly] I promised you two inches more round my chest this summer. I tried exercises with an indiarubber expander;but I wasnt strong enough: instead of my expanding it, it crumpled me up. Come along, Johnny.
JOHNNY. Do you no end of good, young chap. [He goes out with Bentley through the pavilion].
Hypatia throws aside her work with an enormous sigh of relief.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. At last!
HYPATIA. At last. Oh, if I might only have a holiday in an asylum for the dumb. How I envy the animals! They cant talk. If Johnny could only put back his ears or wag his tail instead of laying down the law, how much better it would be! We should know when he was cross and when he was pleased; and thats all we know now, with all his talk. It never stops: talk, talk, talk, talk. Thats my life. All the day I listen to mamma talking; at dinner I listen to papa talking;and when papa stops for breath I listen to Johnny talking.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. You make me feel very guilty. I talk too, I'm afraid.
HYPATIA. Oh, I dont mind that, because your talk is a novelty. But it must have been dreadful for your daughters.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. I suppose so.
HYPATIA. If parents would only realize how they bore their children!
Three or four times in the last half hour Ive been on the point of screaming.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Were we very dull?
HYPATIA. Not at all: you were very clever. Thats whats so hard to bear, because it makes it so difficult to avoid listening. You see, I'm young; and I do so want something to happen. My mother tells me that when I'm her age, I shall be only too glad that nothing's happened; but I'm not her age; so what good is that to me? Theres my father in the garden, meditating on his destiny. All very well for him: hes had a destiny to meditate on; but I havnt had any destiny yet. Everything's happened to him: nothing's happened to me. Thats why this unending talk is so maddeningly uninteresting to me.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. It would be worse if we sat in silence.
HYPATIA. No it wouldnt. If you all sat in silence, as if you were waiting for something to happen, then there would be hope even if nothing did happen. But this eternal cackle, cackle, cackle about things in general is only fit for old, old, OLD people. I suppose it means something to them: theyve had their fling. All I listen for is some sign of it ending in something; but just when it seems to be coming to a point, Johnny or papa just starts another hare; and it all begins over again; and I realize that it's never going to lead anywhere and never going to stop. Thats when I want to scream. Iwonder how you can stand it.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, I'm old and garrulous myself, you see.
Besides, I'm not here of my own free will, exactly. I came because you ordered me to come.
HYPATIA. Didnt you want to come?
LORD SUMMERHAYS. My dear: after thirty years of managing other people's business, men lose the habit of considering what they want or dont want.
HYPATIA. Oh, dont begin to talk about what men do, and about thirty years experience. If you cant get off that subject, youd better send for Johnny and papa and begin it all over again.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. I'm sorry. I beg your pardon.
HYPATIA. I asked you, didnt you want to come?
LORD SUMMERHAYS. I did not stop to consider whether I wanted or not, because when I read your letter I knew I had to come.
HYPATIA. Why?
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Oh come, Miss Tarleton! Really, really! Dont force me to call you a blackmailer to your face. You have me in your power;and I do what you tell me very obediently. Dont ask me to pretend Ido it of my own free will.
HYPATIA. I dont know what a blackmailer is. I havnt even that much experience.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. A blackmailer, my dear young lady, is a person who knows a disgraceful secret in the life of another person, and extorts money from that other person by threatening to make his secret public unless the money is paid.
HYPATIA. I havnt asked you for money.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. No; but you asked me to come down here and talk to you; and you mentioned casually that if I didnt youd have nobody to talk about me to but Bentley. That was a threat, was it not?
HYPATIA. Well, I wanted you to come.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. In spite of my age and my unfortunate talkativeness?
HYPATIA. I like talking to you. I can let myself go with you. I can say things to you I cant say to other people.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. I wonder why?
HYPATIA. Well, you are the only really clever, grown-up, high-class, experienced man I know who has given himself away to me by making an utter fool of himself with me. You cant wrap yourself up in your toga after that. You cant give yourself airs with me.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. You mean you can tell Bentley about me if I do.
HYPATIA. Even if there wasnt any Bentley: even if you didnt care (and I really dont see why you should care so much) still, we never could be on conventional terms with one another again. Besides, Ive got a feeling for you: almost a ghastly sort of love for you.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. [shrinking] I beg you--no, please.
HYPATIA. Oh, it's nothing at all flattering: and, of course, nothing wrong, as I suppose youd call it.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Please believe that I know that. When men of my age--HYPATIA. [impatiently] Oh, do talk about yourself when you mean yourself, and not about men of your age.
