The Big Drum Part 61

OTTOLINE.

[_Withdrawing her hand._] Pst! [_Throwing her head up._] Good night, Robbie.

[_With a queenly air she sweeps into the vestibule and follows_ SIR RANDLE _and_ LADY FILSON _out on to the landing._ BERTRAM _closes the vestibule door, and immediately afterwards the outer door slams._

ROOPE.

[_To_ PHILIP, _in an agony._] No, no, Phil! It mustn't end like this!

Good lord, man, reflect--consider what you're chucking away! You're mad--absolutely mad! [PHILIP _calmly presses a bell-push at the side of the fireplace._] I'll go after 'em--and talk to her. I'll talk to her.

[_Running to the vestibule door and opening it._] Don't wait for me.

[_Going into the vestibule and grabbing his hat and overcoat._] It's a tiff--a lovers' tiff! It's nothing but a lovers' tiff! [_Shutting the vestibule door, piteously._] Oh, my dear excellent friend----!

[JOHN _appears, opening one of the big doors a little way. Again the outer door slams._

PHILIP.

[_To_ JOHN, _sternly._] Dinner.

JOHN.

[_Looking for the guests--dumbfoundered_] D-d-dinner, sir?

PHILIP.

Serve dinner.

JOHN.

[_His eyes bolting._] The--the--the ladies and gentlemen have gone, sir!

PHILIP.

Yes. I'm dining alone.

[JOHN _vanishes precipitately; whereupon_ PHILIP _strides to the big doors, thrusts them wide open with a blow of his fists, and sits at the dining-table._

END OF THE THIRD ACT

THE FOURTH ACT

_The scene is the same, the light that of a fine winter morning. The big doors are open, and from the dining-room windows, where the curtains are now drawn back, there is a view of some buildings opposite and, through a s.p.a.ce between the buildings, of the tops of the bare trees in Gray's Inn garden._

_Save for a chair with a crumpled napkin upon it which stands at the dining-table before the remains of_ PHILIP_'s breakfast, the disposition of the furniture is as when first shown._

_A fire is burning in the nearer room._

[PHILIP, _dressed as at the opening of the preceding act, is seated on the settee on the right, moodily puffing at his pipe._ ROOPE _faces him, in the chair by the smoking-table, with a mournful air._ ROOPE _is in his overcoat and is nursing his hat._

PHILIP.

[_To_ ROOPE, _shortly, as if continuing a conversation._] Well?

ROOPE.

Well, what happened was this. I----

[_He breaks off to glance over his shoulder into the further room._

PHILIP.

Go on. n.o.body'll hear you. John's out.

ROOPE.

What happened was this. I overtook 'em at the bottom of the stairs, and begged 'em to let me go back with them to Ennismore Gardens. Lady Filson and I got into one cab, Sir Randle and Madame de Chaumie into another. Bertram Filson slunk off to his club. At Ennismore Gardens we had the most depressin' meal I've ever sat down to, and then Madame Ottoline proposed that I should smoke a cigarette in her boudoir.

[_Distressed._] Oh, my dear Phil----!

PHILIP.

W-w-what----?

ROOPE.

I can't bear to see a woman in tears; I can't, positively.

PHILIP.

[_Between his teeth._] Confound you, Robbie, who can! Don't brag about it.

ROOPE.

At first she swept up and down the room like an outraged Empress. Her skirts created quite a wind. I won't attempt to tell you all the bitter things she said----

PHILIP.

Of me?

ROOPE.

And of _me_, dear excellent friend.

PHILIP.