The Philanderer | Page 2

so
much that I have wanted to be in love with some one ever since. I hope,
now that I am in love with you, you will like me for it just as I liked
Tranfield.
CHARTERIS. My dear, it is because I like you that I want to marry
you. I could love anybody--any pretty woman, that is.
GRACE. Do you really mean that, Leonard?
CHARTERIS. Of course. Why not?
GRACE (reflecting). Never mind why. Now tell me, is this your first
love affair?
CHARTERIS (amazed at the simplicity of the question). No, bless my
soul. No--nor my second, nor my third.
GRACE. But I mean your first serious one.
CHARTERIS (with a certain hesitation). Yes. (There is a pause. She is
not convinced. He adds, with a very perceptible load on his conscience.)
It is the first in which I have been serious.
GRACE (searchingly). I see. The other parties were always serious.
CHARTERIS. No, not always--heaven forbid!
GRACE. How often?
CHARTERIS. Well, once.
GRACE. Julia Craven?

CHARTERIS (recoiling). Who told you that? (She shakes her head
mysteriously, and he turns away from her moodily and adds) You had
much better not have asked.
GRACE (gently). I'm sorry, dear. (She puts out her hand and pulls
softly at him to bring him near her again.)
CHARTERIS (yielding mechanically to the pull, and allowing her hand
to rest on his arm, but sitting squarely without the least attempt to
return the caress). Do I feel harder to the touch than I did five minutes
ago?
GRACE. What nonsense!
CHARTERIS. I feel as if my body had turned into the toughest of
hickory. That is what comes of reminding me of Julia Craven.
(Brooding, with his chin on his right hand and his elbow on his knee.) I
have sat alone with her just as I am sitting with you--
GRACE (shrinking from him). Just!
CHARTERIS (sitting upright and facing her steadily). Just exactly. She
has put her hands in mine, and laid her cheek against mine, and listened
to me saying all sorts of silly things. (Grace, chilled to the soul, rises
from the sofa and sits down on the piano stool, with her back to the
keyboard.) Ah, you don't want to hear any more of the story. So much
the better.
GRACE (deeply hurt, but controlling herself). When did you break it
off?
CHARTERIS (guiltily). Break it off?
GRACE (firmly). Yes, break it off.
CHARTERIS. Well, let me see. When did I fall in love with you?
GRACE. Did you break it off then?

CHARTERIS (mischievously, making it plainer and plainer that it has
not been broken off). It was clear then, of course, that it must be broken
off.
GRACE. And did you break it off?
CHARTERIS. Oh, yes: I broke it off,
GRACE. But did she break it off?
CHARTERIS (rising). As a favour to me, dearest, change the subject.
Come away from the piano: I want you to sit here with me. (Takes a
step towards her.)
GRACE. No. I also have grown hard to the touch--much harder than
hickory for the present. Did she break it off?
CHARTERIS. My dear, be reasonable. It was fully explained to her
that it was to be broken off.
GRACE. Did she accept the explanation?
CHARTERIS. She did what a woman like Julia always does. When I
explained personally, she said it was not not my better self that was
speaking, and that she knew I still really loved her. When I wrote it to
her with brutal explicitness, she read the letter carefully and then sent it
back to me with a note to say that she had not had the courage to open
it, and that I ought to be ashamed of having written it. (Comes beside
Grace, and puts his left hand caressingly round her neck.) You see,
dearie, she won't look the situation in the face.
GRACE. (shaking off his hand and turning a little away on the stool). I
am afraid, from the light way in which you speak of it, you did not
sound the right chord.
CHARTERIS. My dear, when you are doing what a woman calls
breaking her heart, you may sound the very prettiest chords you can
find on the piano; but to her ears it is just like this--(Sits down on the

bass end of the keyboard. Grace puts her fingers in her ears. He rises
and moves away from the piano, saying) No, my dear: I've been kind;
I've been frank; I've been everything that a goodnatured man could be:
she only takes it as the making up of a lover's quarrel. (Grace winces.)
Frankness and kindness: one is as the other--especially frankness. I've
tried both. (He crosses to the fireplace, and stands facing the fire,
looking at the