Part 16 (2/2)

MRS. MASTERSON. Quincy, if you can't stop this outrage, I will! Call the servants.

[She starts toward Oceana.]

OCEANA. Call the police! Call your guests! Anything... bring the world down on him. Terrify him with conventions, beat him into subjection again!

MRS. MASTERSON. Wanton!

OCEANA. Wanton! Oh, how well you understand me! I, with my hunger for righteousness... I, who have disciplined myself as an anchorite, who have served as a priestess of life! And you, with your formulas and your superst.i.tions... you pa.s.s judgment upon me! [With terrific energy.] See! This man and I, we are the gateway to the future! And you seek to bar it! By what right do you stand in the path of posterity... you tormentors of the ideal, you a.s.sa.s.sins of human hope!

MRS. MASTERSON. [Almost striking her.] Oh! Oh! And my children have to listen to this! [She whirls about.] Ethel! Freddy! Go out of the room!

ETHEL. I am going with Oceana.

MRS. MASTERSON. What?

ETHEL. Some day... if not now. She's perfectly right. Let.i.tia has no business to keep him. She never would have got him if she hadn't played a part.

MRS. MASTERSON. Ethel Masterson!

LEt.i.tIA. Little vixen!

FREDDY. [Rushes to OCEANA and seizes her hand.] Oceana! Let me go with you, too!

DR. MASTERSON. What next!

OCEANA. No, Freddy... no! [She withdraws her hand and holds it out to Henry.] Henry! Come!

[A tense pause; all stare at Henry. He never takes his eyes from Oceana. Slowly, like one hypnotized, he draws away from his wife's embrace, and moves towards Oceana. He seizes her hand. All stand transfixed. Silence.]

[CURTAIN]

ACT IV

[The scene shows the living-room of a bungalow. Large stone fireplace centre; windows and window seats on each side; French windows leading to piazza right; piano between them; door left to another room; large mirror beside it. Centre table, rustic chairs, deer-heads and skins, Indian blankets, etc.]

[At rise: The stage is empty.]

OCEANA. [Laughs off.] Oh, say, but that was an adventure!

[Enters; glowing and exultant from a long mountain walk. She wears a ”Rosalind” costume, brown, with soft boots, gauntlet gloves and light fur about the neck; carries a pair of snow-shoes, which she has taken off and from which she knocks the snow.]

HENRY. [Follows.] You like the mountains!

OCEANA. Oh, my dear! They are marvellous! I've never imagined anything like it... to be able to see so much of the world at once. It's the way you think of heaven.

HENRY. You don't mind the cold?

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