Plays: Lady Frederick, The Explorer, A Man of Honor Part 138

HILDA.

It's so nice of you to have come.

BRACKLEY.

[_Nodding at_ BASIL.] Good-bye.... May I come again soon?

HILDA.

[_Looking at him quickly._] Were you serious just now, or were you laughing at me?

BRACKLEY.

I've never been more serious in my life.

HILDA.

Then perhaps I shall be in to luncheon on Thursday after all.

BRACKLEY.

A thousand thanks. Good-bye.

[_He nods to_ BASIL _and goes out_. HILDA _looks at_ BASIL _with a smile_.

HILDA.

Is that a very interesting book?

BASIL.

[_Putting it down._] I thought that man was never going away.

HILDA.

[_Laughing._] I suspect he thought precisely the same of you.

BASIL.

[_Ill-temperedly._] What an a.s.s he is! How _can_ you stand him?

HILDA.

I'm rather attached to him. I don't take everything he says very seriously. And young men ought to be foolish.

BASIL.

He didn't strike me as so juvenile as all that.

HILDA.

He's only forty, poor thing--and I've never known a coming young man who was less than that.

BASIL.

He's a young man with a very bald head.

HILDA.

[_Amused._] I wonder why you dislike him!

BASIL.

[_With a jealous glance, icily._] I thought he wasn't admitted into decent houses.

HILDA.

[_Opening her eyes._] He comes here, Mr. Kent.

BASIL.

[_Unable to restrain his ill-temper._] Don't you know that he's been mixed up in every scandal for the last twenty years?

HILDA.

[_Good-humouredly_, _seeing that_ BASIL _is merely jealous_.] There must be people in the world to provide gossip for their neighbours.

BASIL.

It's no business of mine. I have no right to talk to you like this.

HILDA.

I wonder why you do it?

BASIL.

[_Almost savagely._] Because I love you.

[_There is a little pause._

HILDA.

[_With a smile, ironically._] Won't you have some more tea, Mr. Kent?

BASIL.

[_Going up to her, speaking with a sort of vehement gravity._] You don't know what I've suffered. You don't know what a h.e.l.l my life is.... I tried so hard to prevent myself from coming here. When I married I swore I'd break with all my old friends.... When I married I found I loved _you_.