Part 8 (1/2)

A very handsome man of fifty, with mousquetaire moustaches, wearing a rather dandified curly brimmed hat, and carrying an elaborate walking-stick, comes into the room from the hall, and stops short at sight of the women on the sofa.

ELLIE [seeing him and rising in glad surprise]. Oh! Hesione: this is Mr Marcus Darnley.

MRS HUSHABYE [rising]. What a lark! He is my husband.

ELLIE. But now--[she stops suddenly: then turns pale and sways].

MRS HUSHABYE [catching her and sitting down with her on the sofa].

Steady, my pettikins.

THE MAN [with a mixture of confusion and effrontery, depositing his hat and stick on the teak table]. My real name, Miss Dunn, is Hector Hushabye. I leave you to judge whether that is a name any sensitive man would care to confess to. I never use it when I can possibly help it. I have been away for nearly a month; and I had no idea you knew my wife, or that you were coming here. I am none the less delighted to find you in our little house.

ELLIE [in great distress]. I don't know what to do. Please, may I speak to papa? Do leave me. I can't bear it.

MRS HUSHABYE. Be off, Hector.

HECTOR. I--

MRS HUSHABYE. Quick, quick. Get out.

HECTOR. If you think it better--[he goes out, taking his hat with him but leaving the stick on the table].

MRS HUSHABYE [laying Ellie down at the end of the sofa]. Now, pettikins, he is gone. There's n.o.body but me. You can let yourself go. Don't try to control yourself. Have a good cry.

ELLIE [raising her head]. d.a.m.n!

MRS HUSHABYE. Splendid! Oh, what a relief! I thought you were going to be broken-hearted. Never mind me. d.a.m.n him again.

ELLIE. I am not d.a.m.ning him. I am d.a.m.ning myself for being such a fool.

[Rising]. How could I let myself be taken in so? [She begins prowling to and fro, her bloom gone, looking curiously older and harder].

MRS HUSHABYE [cheerfully]. Why not, pettikins? Very few young women can resist Hector. I couldn't when I was your age. He is really rather splendid, you know.

ELLIE [turning on her]. Splendid! Yes, splendid looking, of course. But how can you love a liar?

MRS HUSHABYE. I don't know. But you can, fortunately. Otherwise there wouldn't be much love in the world.

ELLIE. But to lie like that! To be a boaster! a coward!

MRS HUSHABYE [rising in alarm]. Pettikins, none of that, if you please.

If you hint the slightest doubt of Hector's courage, he will go straight off and do the most horribly dangerous things to convince himself that he isn't a coward. He has a dreadful trick of getting out of one third-floor window and coming in at another, just to test his nerve. He has a whole drawerful of Albert Medals for saving people's lives.

ELLIE. He never told me that.

MRS HUSHABYE. He never boasts of anything he really did: he can't bear it; and it makes him shy if anyone else does. All his stories are made-up stories.

ELLIE [coming to her]. Do you mean that he is really brave, and really has adventures, and yet tells lies about things that he never did and that never happened?

MRS HUSHABYE. Yes, pettikins, I do. People don't have their virtues and vices in sets: they have them anyhow: all mixed.