Overruled | Page 9

was something about your late husband--
MRS. JUNO. My LATE husband! What do you mean? [clutching him, horror-stricken]. Don't tell me he's dead.
GREGORY [rising, equally appalled]. Don't tell me he's alive.
MRS. JUNO. Oh, don't frighten me like this. Of course he's alive--unless you've heard anything.
GREGORY. The first day we met--on the boat--you spoke to me of your poor dear husband.
MRS. JUNO [releasing him, quite reassured]. Is that all?
GREGORY. Well, afterwards you called him poor Tops. Always poor Tops, Our poor dear Tops. What could I think?
MRS. JUNO [sitting down again]. I wish you hadn't given me such a shock about him; for I haven't been treating him at all well. Neither have you.
GREGORY [relapsing into his seat, overwhelmed]. And you mean to tell me you're not a widow!
MRS. JUNO. Gracious, no! I'm not in black.
GREGORY. Then I have been behaving like a blackguard. I have broken my promise to my mother. I shall never have an easy conscience again.
MRS. JUNO. I'm sorry. I thought you knew.
GREGORY. You thought I was a libertine?
MRS. JUNO. No: of course I shouldn't have spoken to you if I had thought that. I thought you liked me, but that you knew, and would be good.
GREGORY [stretching his hands towards her breast]. I thought the burden of being good had fallen from my soul at last. I saw nothing there but a bosom to rest on: the bosom of a lovely woman of whom I could dream without guilt. What do I see now?
MRS. JUNO. Just what you saw before.
GREGORY [despairingly]. No, no.
MRS. JUNO. What else?
GREGORY. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted: Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted.
MRS. JUNO. They won't if they hold their tongues. Don't be such a coward. My husband won't eat you.
GREGORY. I'm not afraid of your husband. I'm afraid of my conscience.
MRS. JUNO [losing patience]. Well! I don't consider myself at all a badly behaved woman; for nothing has passed between us that was not perfectly nice and friendly; but really! to hear a grown-up man talking about promises to his mother!
GREGORY [interrupting her]. Yes, Yes: I know all about that. It's not romantic: it's not Don Juan: it's not advanced; but we feel it all the same. It's far deeper in our blood and bones than all the romantic stuff. My father got into a scandal once: that was why my mother made me promise never to make love to a married woman. And now I've done it I can't feel honest. Don't pretend to despise me or laugh at me. You feel it too. You said just now that your own conscience was uneasy when you thought of your husband. What must it be when you think of my wife?
MRS. JUNO [rising aghast]. Your wife!!! You don't dare sit there and tell me coolly that you're a married man!
GREGORY. I never led you to believe I was unmarried.
MRS. JUNO. Oh! You never gave me the faintest hint that you had a wife.
GREGORY. I did indeed. I discussed things with you that only married people really understand.
MRS. JUNO. Oh!!
GREGORY. I thought it the most delicate way of letting you know.
MRS. JUNO. Well, you ARE a daisy, I must say. I suppose that's vulgar; but really! really!! You and your goodness! However, now we've found one another out there's only one thing to be done. Will you please go?
GREGORY [rising slowly]. I OUGHT to go.
MRS. JUNO. Well, go.
GREGORY. Yes. Er--[he tries to go]. I--I somehow can't. [He sits down again helplessly]. My conscience is active: my will is paralyzed. This is really dreadful. Would you mind ringing the bell and asking them to throw me out? You ought to, you know.
MRS. JUNO. What! make a scandal in the face of the whole hotel! Certainly not. Don't be a fool.
GREGORY. Yes; but I can't go.
MRS. JUNO. Then I can. Goodbye.
GREGORY [clinging to her hand]. Can you really?
MRS. JUNO. Of course I--[she wavers]. Oh, dear! [They contemplate one another helplessly]. I can't. [She sinks on the lounge, hand in hand with him].
GREGORY. For heaven's sake pull yourself together. It's a question of self-control.
MRS. JUNO [dragging her hand away and retreating to the end of the chesterfield]. No: it's a question of distance. Self-control is all very well two or three yards off, or on a ship, with everybody looking on. Don't come any nearer.
GREGORY. This is a ghastly business. I want to go away; and I can't.
MRS. JUNO. I think you ought to go [he makes an effort; and she adds quickly] but if you try I shall grab you round the neck and disgrace myself. I implore you to sit still and be nice.
GREGORY. I implore you to run away. I believe I can trust myself to let you go for your own sake. But it will break my heart.
MRS. JUNO. I don't want to break your