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Page 10
Sarah and Barbara come in with their respective young men,
Charles Lomax and Adolphus Cusins. Sarah is slender, bored, and
mundane. Barbara is robuster, jollier, much more energetic. Sarah
is fashionably dressed: Barbara is in Salvation Army uniform.
Lomax, a young man about town, is like many other young men about
town. He is affected with a frivolous sense of humor which
plunges him at the most inopportune moments into paroxysms of
imperfectly suppressed laughter. Cusins is a spectacled student,
slight, thin haired, and sweet voiced, with a more complex form
of Lomax's complaint. His sense of humor is intellectual and
subtle, and is complicated by an appalling temper. The lifelong
struggle of a benevolent temperament and a high conscience
against impulses of inhuman ridicule and fierce impatience has
set up a chronic strain which has visibly wrecked his
constitution. He is a most implacable, determined, tenacious,
intolerant person who by mere force of character presents himself
as--and indeed actually is--considerate, gentle, explanatory,
even mild and apologetic, capable possibly of murder, but not of
cruelty or coarseness. By the operation of some instinct which is
not merciful enough to blind him with the illusions of love, he
is obstinately bent on marrying Barbara. Lomax likes Sarah and
thinks it will be rather a lark to marry her. Consequently he has
not attempted to resist Lady Britomart's arrangements to that
end.
All four look as if they had been having a good deal of fun in
the drawingroom. The girls enter first, leaving the swains
outside. Sarah comes to the settee. Barbara comes in after her
and stops at the door.
BARBARA. Are Cholly and Dolly to come in?
LADY BRITOMART [forcibly] Barbara: I will not have Charles called
Cholly: the vulgarity of it positively makes me ill.
BARBARA. It's all right, mother. Cholly is quite correct
nowadays. Are they to come in?
LADY BRITOMART. Yes, if they will behave themselves.
BARBARA [through the door] Come in, Dolly, and behave yourself.
Barbara comes to her mother's writing table. Cusins enters
smiling, and wanders towards Lady Britomart.
SARAH [calling] Come in, Cholly. [Lomax enters, controlling his
features very imperfectly, and places himself vaguely between
Sarah and Barbara].
LADY BRITOMART [peremptorily] Sit down, all of you. [They sit.
Cusins crosses to the window and seats himself there. Lomax takes
a chair. Barbara sits at the writing table and Sarah on the
settee]. I don't in the least know what you are laughing at,
Adolphus. I am surprised at you, though I expected nothing better
from Charles Lomax.
CUSINS [in a remarkably gentle voice] Barbara has been trying to
teach me the West Ham Salvation March.
LADY BRITOMART. I see nothing to laugh at in that; nor should you
if you are really converted.
CUSINS [sweetly] You were not present. It was really funny, I
believe.
LOMAX. Ripping.
LADY BRITOMART. Be quiet, Charles. Now listen to me, children.
Your father is coming here this evening. [General stupefaction].
LOMAX [remonstrating] Oh I say!
LADY BRITOMART. You are not called on to say anything, Charles.
SARAH. Are you serious, mother?
LADY BRITOMART. Of course I am serious. It is on your account,
Sarah, and also on Charles's. [Silence. Charles looks painfully
unworthy]. I hope you are not going to object, Barbara.
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