The Sentimentalists | Page 3

hints at service on
the West Coast of Africa.
HOMEWARE: For the draining of a pestiferous land, or an
enlightenment of the benighted black, we could not despatch a
missionary more effective than the handsomest widow in Great Britain.
LYRA: Have you not seen signs of disturbance?
HOMEWARE: A great oration may be a sedative.
LYRA: I have my suspicions.
HOMEWARE: Mr. Arden, I could counsel you to throw yourself at
Lady Pluriel's feet, and institute her as your confessional priest.
ARDEN: Madam, I am at your feet. I am devoted to the lady.
LYRA: Devoted. There cannot be an objection. It signifies that a man
asks for nothing in return!
HOMEWARE: Have a thought upon your words with this lady, Mr.
Arden!
ARDEN: Devoted, I said. I am. I would give my life for her.
LYRA: Expecting it to be taken to-morrow or next day? Accept my
encomiums. A male devotee is within an inch of a miracle. Women had
been looking for this model for ages, uncle.
HOMEWARE: You are the model, Mr Arden!
LYRA: Can you have intended to say that it is in view of marriage you
are devoted to the widow of Professor Towers?
ARDEN: My one view.
LYRA: It is a star you are beseeching to descend.

ARDEN: It is.
LYRA: You disappoint me hugely. You are of the ordinary tribe after
all; and your devotion craves an enormous exchange, infinitely
surpassing the amount you bestow.
ARDEN: It does. She is rich in gifts; I am poor. But I give all I have.
LYRA: These lovers, uncle Homeware!
HOMEWARE: A honey-bag is hung up and we have them about us.
They would persuade us that the chief business of the world is a march
to the altar.
ARDEN: With the right partner, if the business of the world is to be
better done.
LYRA: Which right partner has been chosen on her part, by a veiled
woman, who marches back from the altar to discover that she has
chained herself to the skeleton of an idea, or is in charge of that
devouring tyrant, an uxorious husband. Is Mr. Arden in favour with the
Dame, uncle?
HOMEWARE: My sister is an unsuspicious potentate, as you know.
Pretenders to the hand of an inviolate widow bite like waves at a rock.
LYRA: Professor Spiral advances rapidly.
HOMEWARE: Not, it would appear, when he has his audience of
ladies and their satellites.
LYRA: I am sure I hear a spring-tide of enthusiasm coming.
ARDEN: I will see.
(He goes up the path.)
LYRA: Now! my own dear uncle, save me from Pluriel. I have given
him the slip in sheer desperation; but the man is at his shrewdest when

he is left to guess at my heels. Tell him I am anywhere but here. Tell
him I ran away to get a sense of freshness in seeing him again. Let me
have one day of liberty, or, upon my word, I shall do deeds; I shall
console young Arden: I shall fly to Paris and set my cap at presidents
and foreign princes. Anything rather than be eaten up every minute, as I
am. May no woman of my acquaintance marry a man of twenty years
her senior! She marries a gigantic limpet. At that period of his life a
man becomes too voraciously constant.
HOMEWARE: Cupid clipped of wing is a destructive parasite.
LYRA: I am in dead earnest, uncle, and I will have a respite, or else let
decorum beware!
(Arden returns.)
ARDEN: The ladies are on their way.
LYRA: I must get Astraea to myself.
HOMEWARE: My library is a virgin fortress, Mr. Arden. Its gates are
open to you on other topics than the coupling of inebriates.
(He enters the house--LYRA disappears in the garden--Spiral's
audience reappear without him.)

SCENE IV
DAME DRESDEN, LADY OLDLACE, VIRGINIA, WINIFRED,
ARDEN, SWITHIN, OSIER
LADY OLDLACE: Such perfect rhythm!
WINIFRED: Such oratory!
LADY OLDLACE: A master hand. I was in a trance from the first
sentence to the impressive close.

OSIER: Such oratory is a whole orchestral symphony.
VIRGINIA: Such command of intonation and subject!
SWITHIN: That resonant voice!
LADY OLDLACE: Swithin, his flow of eloquence! He launched forth!
SWITHIN: Like an eagle from a cliff.
OSIER: The measure of the words was like a beat of wings.
SWITHIN: He makes poets of us.
DAME DRESDEN: Spiral achieved his pinnacle to-day!
VIRGINIA: How treacherous is our memory when we have most the
longing to recall great sayings!
OSIER: True, I conceive that my notes will be precious.
WINIFRED: You could take notes!
LADY OLDLACE: It seems a device for missing the quintessential.
SWITHIN: Scraps of the body to the loss of the soul of it. We can
allow that our friend performed good menial service.
WINIFRED: I could