Crucial Instances Part 9

_Hilda (modestly)_. Four publishers have applied to me already--

_The Servant (announces)_. Mr. Paul Ventnor.

_(Tall, nearing fifty, with an incipient stoutness b.u.t.toned into a masterly frock-coat, Ventnor drops his gla.s.s and advances vaguely, with a short-sighted stare.)_

_Ventnor_. Mrs. Dale?

_Mrs. Dale_. My dear friend! This is kind. _(She looks over her shoulder at Hilda, mho vanishes through the door to the left.)_ The papers announced your arrival, but I hardly hoped--

_Ventnor (whose short-sighted stare is seen to conceal a deeper embarra.s.sment)_. You hadn't forgotten me, then?

_Mrs. Dale_. Delicious! Do _you_ forget that you're public property?

_Ventnor_. Forgotten, I mean, that we were old friends?

_Mrs. Dale_. Such old friends! May I remind you that it's nearly twenty years since we've met? Or do you find cold reminiscences indigestible?

_Ventnor_. On the contrary, I've come to ask you for a dish of them--we'll warm them up together. You're my first visit.

_Mrs. Dale_. How perfect of you! So few men visit their women friends in chronological order; or at least they generally do it the other way round, beginning with the present day and working back--if there's time--to prehistoric woman.

_Ventnor_. But when prehistoric woman has become historic woman--?

_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, it's the reflection of my glory that has guided you here, then?

_Ventnor_. It's a spirit in my feet that has led me, at the first opportunity, to the most delightful spot I know.

_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, the first opportunity--!

_Ventnor_. I might have seen you very often before; but never just in the right way.

_Mrs. Dale_. Is this the right way?

_Ventnor_. It depends on you to make it so.

_Mrs. Dale_. What a responsibility! What shall I do?

_Ventnor_. Talk to me--make me think you're a little glad to see me; give me some tea and a cigarette; and say you're out to everyone else.

_Mrs. Dale_. Is that all? _(She hands him a cup of tea.)_ The cigarettes are at your elbow--. And do you think I shouldn't have been glad to see you before?

_Ventnor_. No; I think I should have been too glad to see you.

_Mrs. Dale_. Dear me, what precautions! I hope you always wear goloshes when it looks like rain and never by any chance expose yourself to a draught. But I had an idea that poets courted the emotions--

_Ventnor_. Do novelists?

_Mrs. Dale_. If you ask _me_--on paper!

_Ventnor_. Just so; that's safest. My best things about the sea have been written on sh.o.r.e. _(He looks at her thoughtfully.)_ But it wouldn't have suited us in the old days, would it?

_Mrs. Dale (sighing)_. When we were real people!

_Ventnor_. Real people?

_Mrs. Dale_. Are _you_, now? I died years ago. What you see before you is a figment of the reporter's brain--a monster manufactured out of newspaper paragraphs, with ink in its veins. A keen sense of copyright is _my_ nearest approach to an emotion.

_Ventnor (sighing)_. Ah, well, yes--as you say, we're public property.

_Mrs. Dale_. If one shared equally with the public! But the last shred of my ident.i.ty is gone.

_Ventnor_. Most people would be glad to part with theirs on such terms. I have followed your work with immense interest. _Immolation_ is a masterpiece. I read it last summer when it first came out.

_Mrs. Dale (with a shade less warmth)_. _Immolation_ has been out three years.

_Ventnor_. Oh, by Jove--no? Surely not--But one is so overwhelmed--one loses count. (_Reproachfully_.) Why have you never sent me your books?

_Mrs. Dale_. For that very reason.

_Ventnor (deprecatingly)_. You know I didn't mean it for you! And _my_ first book--do you remember--was dedicated to you.

_Mrs. Dale_. _Silver Trumpets_--

_Ventnor (much interested)_. Have you a copy still, by any chance? The first edition, I mean? Mine was stolen years ago. Do you think you could put your hand on it?

_Mrs. Dale (taking a small shabby book from the table at her side)_.

It's here.

_Ventnor (eagerly)_. May I have it? Ah, thanks. This is _very_ interesting. The last copy sold in London for 40, and they tell me the next will fetch twice as much. It's quite _introuvable_.

_Mrs. Dale_. I know that. _(A pause. She takes the book from him, opens it, and reads, half to herself--)_

_How much we two have seen together, Of other eyes unwist, Dear as in days of leafless weather The willow's saffron mist,

Strange as the hour when Hesper swings A-sea in beryl green, While overhead on dalliant wings The daylight hangs serene,

And thrilling as a meteor's fall Through depths of lonely sky, When each to each two watchers call: I saw it!--So did I._

_Ventnor_. Thin, thin--the troubadour tinkle. Odd how little promise there is in first volumes!

_Mrs. Dale (with irresistible emphasis)_. I thought there was a distinct promise in this!

_Ventnor (seeing his mistake)_. Ah--the one you would never let me fulfil? _(Sentimentally.)_ How inexorable you were! You never dedicated a book to _me_.

_Mrs. Dale_. I hadn't begun to write when we were--dedicating things to each other.

_Ventnor_. Not for the public--but you wrote for me; and, wonderful as you are, you've never written anything since that I care for half as much as--