Part 53 (1/2)

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 _Devons.h.i.+re_.

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 pa.s.ses by.

I do not know its pleasure or its pain-- The Spring was here, the Spring is here again, The Spring will die.

Life pa.s.ses 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?