Dear Brutus | Page 9

chair). Too late, too late.
MABEL (although the woman has seen him swell). I suppose you
never knew what true love was till you met her, Jack?
PURDIE. You force me to say it. Joanna and I are as one person. We
have not a thought at variance. We are one rather than two.
MABEL (looking at JOANNA). Yes, and that's the one! (With the
cheapest sarcasm.) I am so sorry to have marred your lives.
PURDIE. If any blame there is, it is all mine; she is as spotless as the
driven snow. The moment I mentioned love to her she told me to desist.
MABEL. Not she.
JOANNA. So you were listening! (The obtuseness of MABEL is very
strange to her.) Mabel, don't you see how splendid he is!
MABEL. Not quite, Joanna.
(She goes away. She is really a better woman than this, but never
capable of scaling that higher plane to which he has, as it were, offered
her a hand.)
JOANNA. How lovely of you, Jack, to take it all upon yourself.
PURDIE (simply). It is the man's privilege.
JOANNA. Mabel has such a horrid way of seeming to put people in the
wrong.
PURDIE. Have you noticed that? Poor Mabel, it is not an enviable

quality.
JOANNA (despondently). I don't think I care to go out now. She has
spoilt it all. She has taken the innocence out of it, Jack.
PURDIE (a rock). We must be brave and not mind her. Ah, Joanna, if
we had met in time. If only I could begin again. To be battered for ever
just because I once took the wrong turning, it isn't fair.
JOANNA (emerging from his arms). The wrong turning! Now, who
was saying that a moment ago--about himself? Why, it was Matey.
(A footstep is heard.)
PURDIE (for the first time losing patience with his wife). Is that her
coming back again? It's too bad.
(But the intruder is MRS. DEARTH, and he greets her with relief.)
Ah, it is you, Mrs. Dearth.
ALICE. Yes, it is; but thank you for telling me, Mr. Purdie. I don't
intrude, do I?
JOANNA (descending to the lower plane, on which even goddesses
snap). Why should you?
PURDIE. Rather not. We were--hoping it would be you. We want to
start on the walk. I can't think what has become of the others. We have
been looking for them everywhere. (He glances vaguely round the
room, as if they might so far have escaped detection.)
ALICE (pleasantly). Well, do go on looking; under that flower-pot
would be a good place. It is my husband I am in search of.
PURDIE (who likes her best when they are in different rooms). Shall I
rout him out for you?
ALICE. How too unutterably kind of you, Mr. Purdie. I hate to trouble

you, but it would be the sort of service one never forgets.
PURDIE. You know, I believe you are chaffing me.
ALICE. No, no, I am incapable of that.
PURDIE. I won't be a moment.
ALICE. Miss Trout and I will await your return with ill-concealed
impatience.
(They await it across a table, the newcomer in a reverie and JOANNA
watching her. Presently MRS. DEARTH looks up, and we may notice
that she has an attractive screw of the mouth which denotes humour.)
Yes, I suppose you are right; I dare say I am.
JOANNA (puzzled). I didn't say anything.
ALICE. I thought I heard you say 'That hateful Dearth woman, coming
butting in where she is not wanted.'
(Joanna draws up her sveldt figure, but a screw of one mouth often
calls for a similar demonstration from another, and both ladies smile.
They nearly become friends.)
JOANNA. You certainly have good ears.
ALICE (drawling). Yes, they have always been rather admired.
JOANNA (snapping). By the painters for whom you sat when you were
an artist's model?
ALICE (measuring her). So that has leaked out, has it!
JOANNA (ashamed). I shouldn't have said that.
ALICE (their brief friendship over). Do you think I care whether you
know or not?

JOANNA (making an effort to be good). I'm sure you don't. Still, it was
cattish of me.
ALICE. It was.
JOANNA (in flame). I don't see it.
(MRS. DEARTH laughs and forgets her, and with the entrance of a
man from the dining room JOANNA drifts elsewhere. Not so much a
man, this newcomer, as the relic of what has been a good one; it is the
most he would ever claim for himself. Sometimes, brandy in hand, he
has visions of the WILL DEARTH he used to be, clear of eye. sees him
but a field away, singing at his easel or, fishing-rod in hand, leaping a
stile. Our WILL stares after the fellow for quite a long time, so