Why Marry? Part 40

JEAN

Don't you know why I ran away? To make you follow. I made you catch me.

I made you kiss me. Then you realized that we had been thrown together constantly--deliberately thrown together, if you care to know it--and, well, that's how many marriages are made. But I shan't marry on such terms. It's indecent!

REX

[_another pause_]

I never thought a _woman_ could be capable of such honesty!... Oh, what a bully sport you are! You aren't like the rest that have been shoved at me. Why, I can respect you. You are the one for me.

[_He tries to take her._

JEAN

[_restraining him with dignity_]

I am sorry, Rex, but I am not for you.

REX

Jean! without you ... don't you see--I'll go straight to the devil!

JEAN

That old, cowardly dodge? Any man who has no more backbone than that--why, I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man in the world.

REX

[_frantic to possess what he cannot have_]

You won't, eh? We'll see about that. I want you now as I never wanted anything in my life, and I'll win you from him yet. You'll see!

[_HELEN now appears._

HELEN

Oh, I beg your pardon. Lucy said John was out here.

JEAN

I'll call him.

[_She runs down into the garden._

REX

I'll call him.

[_He runs after JEAN. HELEN helplessly watches them go, sighs, standing by the garden steps until JOHN ascends. He looks at HELEN a moment, wondering how to begin. She looks so capable and unafraid of him._

JOHN

If you hadn't gone to college, you could have done what Jean is doing.

HELEN

[_with a shrug and a smile_]

But how proud you must be, John, to have a sister who isn't compelled to marry one man while in love with another. _Now_, aren't you glad I went to college?

[_She laughs good-naturedly at him._

JOHN

Humph! If you think I'd let a sister of mine marry one of old man Baker's two-thousand-dollar employees----

HELEN

Why, John, didn't Ernest tell you? Doctor Hawksbee has offered him a partners.h.i.+p. Just think of that!

JOHN

What! Going back into private practice?

HELEN

But it's such a fas.h.i.+onable practice. Hawksbee's made a million at it.

JOHN

But the inst.i.tute needs Hamilton.