Part 10 (1/2)

GERALD. I'm angry with myself for being myself--I always was that. I was always a curse to myself.

ANABEL. And that's why you curse others so much?

GERALD. You talk as if b.u.t.ter wouldn't melt in your mouth.

ANABEL. You see, Gerald, there has to be a change. You'll have to change.

GERALD. Change of heart?--Well, it won't be to get softer, Anabel.

ANABEL. You needn't be softer. But you can be quieter, more sane even.

There ought to be some part of you that can be quiet and apart from the world, some part that can be happy and gentle.

GERALD. Well, there isn't. I don't pretend to be able to extricate a soft sort of John Halifax, Gentleman, out of the machine I'm mixed up in, and keep him to gladden the connubial hearth. I'm angry, and I'm angry right through, and I'm not going to play bo-peep with myself, pretending not to be.

ANABEL. n.o.body asks you to. But is there no part of you that can be a bit gentle and peaceful and happy with a woman?

GERALD. No, there isn't.--I'm not going to smug with you--no, not I.

You're smug in your coming back. You feel virtuous, and expect me to rise to it. I won't.

ANABEL. Then I'd better have stayed away.

GERALD. If you want me to virtuise and smug with you, you had.

ANABEL. What DO you want, then?

GERALD. I don't know. I know I don't want THAT.

ANABEL. Oh, very well. (Goes to the piano; begins to play.)

(Enter MRS. BARLOW.)

GERALD. h.e.l.lo, mother! Father HAS gone to bed.

MRS. BARLOW. Oh, I thought he was down here talking. You two alone?

GERALD. With the piano for chaperone, mother.

MRS. BARLOW. That's more than I gave you credit for. I haven't come to chaperone you either, Gerald.

GERALD. Chaperone ME, mother! Do you think I need it?

MRS. BARLOW. If you do, you won't get it. I've come too late to be of any use in that way, as far as I hear.

GERALD. What have you heard, mother?

MRS. BARLOW. I heard Oliver and this young woman talking.

GERALD. Oh, did you? When? What did they say?

MRS. BARLOW. Something about married in the sight of heaven, but couldn't keep it up on earth.