Part 48 (1/2)

You'll forget all about it after you're fifteen.

JONATHAN

I can talk to you like I used to talk to my mother.

NATHANIEL

Thank you. We're going to be fine friends, aren't we?

JONATHAN

You bet. Is it silly for me to like to write plays?

NATHANIEL

Why do you ask that?

JONATHAN

Because Uncle John says it's silly.

NATHANIEL

Well, it all depends upon the way you look at it, Jonathan. The world has never been able to agree as to what is and what is not silly. Mr. Browning, the poet, might have considered hooks and eyes the silliest things in the world; but to Mr. de Long, they were, no doubt, the most important things in the world. Many men agree with Mr. Browning and many ladies agree with Mr. de Long.

JONATHAN

That's what I think.

NATHANIEL

You and I probably have many thoughts in common.

[_Susan and Mlle. Perrault enter. Mlle. Perrault is a Frenchwoman of exquisite grace and poise. She speaks English fluently, but with a charming accent and an occasional Gallic phrase larding her pleasant sentences. Her entrance into the room is electric. She has already won Susan._

MLLE. PERRAULT

Ah, there you are, Mr. Nathaniel Clay. I met la belle Susanne in the roadway and she told me you were in the lumber room in the carriage house and I say to her, ”We shall track him to his lair.” Besides, I want to see what a lumber room is.

NATHANIEL

I was hiding from you.

MLLE. PERRAULT

Villain! And this is Jonathan. How do you do? Susanne tells me you write poetry and she writes music and she promise me that you will sing for me.

JONATHAN

I can't sing.