Behind the Beyond | Page 3

with a thud to the floor, looked idly at a piece of music and decided, evidently, not to sing it. Sir John runs out of technical terms and stops.
The dialogue has clearly brought out the following points: Sir John is in the House of Commons. Lady Cicely is not. Sir John is twenty-five years older than Lady Cicely. He doesn't see--isn't he a fool, when everybody in the gallery can see it?--that his parliamentary work is meaningless to her, that her life is insufficient. That's it. Lady Cicely is being "starved." All that she has is money, position, clothes, and jewelry. These things starve any woman. They cramp her. That's what makes problem plays.
Lady Cicely speaks, very quietly, "Are you taking Mr. Harding with you?"
"Why?"
"Nothing. I thought perhaps I might ask him to take me to the opera. Puffi is to sing."
"Do, pray do. Take Harding with you by all means. Poor boy, do take him with you."
Sir John pauses. He looks at Lady Cicely very quietly for a moment. He goes on with a slight change in his voice.
"Do you know, Cicely, I've been rather troubled about Harding lately. There's something the matter with the boy, something wrong."
"Yes?"
"He seems abstracted, moody--I think, in fact I'm sure that the boy is in love."
"Yes?"
Lady Cicely has turned slightly pale. The weariness is out of her manner.
"Trust the instinct of an old man, my dear. There's a woman in it. We old parliamentary hands are very shrewd, you know, even in these things. Some one is playing the devil with Jack--with Harding."
Sir John is now putting on his gloves again and gathering up his parliamentary papers from the parliamentary paper stand on the left.
He cannot see the change in Lady Cicely's face. He is not meant to see it. But even the little girls in the tenth row of the gallery are wise.
He goes on. "Talk to Harding. Get it out of him. You women can do these things. Find out what the trouble is and let me know. I must help him." (A pause. Sir John is speaking almost to himself--and the gallery.) "I promised his mother when she sent him home, sent him to England, that I would."
Lady Cicely speaks. "You knew Mr. Harding's mother very well?"
Sir John: "Very well."
"That was long ago, wasn't it?"
"Long ago."
"Was she married then?"
"No, not then."
"Here in London?"
"Yes, in London. I was only a barrister then with my way to make and she a famous beauty." (Sir John is speaking with a forced levity that doesn't deceive even the ushers.) "She married Harding of the Guards. They went to India. And there he spent her fortune--and broke her heart." Sir John sighs.
"You have seen her since?"
"Never."
"She has never written you?"
"Only once. She sent her boy home and wrote to me for help. That was how I took him as my secretary."
"And that was why he came to us in Italy two years ago, just after our marriage."
"Yes, that was why."
"Does Mr. Harding know?"
"Know what?"
"That you--knew his mother?"
Sir John shakes his head. "I have never talked with him about his mother's early life."
The stage clock on the mantelpiece begins to strike. Sir John lets it strike up to four or five, and then says, "There, eight o'clock. I must go. I shall be late at the House. Good-by."
He moves over to Lady Cicely and kisses her. There is softness in his manner--such softness that he forgets the bundle of parliamentary papers that he had laid down. Everybody can see that he has forgotten them. They were right there under his very eye.
Sir John goes out.
Lady Cicely stands looking fixedly at the fire. She speaks out loud to herself. "How his voice changed--twenty-five years ago--so long as that--I wonder if Jack knows."
There is heard the ring of a bell off the stage. The valet enters.
"Mr. Harding is downstairs, my lady."
"Show him up, Ransome."
A moment later Mr. Harding enters. He is a narrow young man in a frock coat. His face is weak. It has to be. Mr. Harding is meant to typify weakness. Lady Cicely walks straight to him. She puts her two hands on his shoulders and looks right into his face.
"MY DARLING," she says. Just like that. In capital letters. You can feel the thrill of it run through the orchestra chairs. All the audience look at Mr. Harding, some with opera glasses, others with eyeglasses on sticks. They can see that he is just the sort of ineffectual young man that a starved woman in a problem play goes mad over.
Lady Cicely repeats "My darling" several times. Mr. Harding says "Hush," and tries to disengage himself. She won't let him. He offers to ring for tea. She won't have any. "Oh, Jack," she says. "I can't go on any longer. I can't. When first