LITMIR.BIZ

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      CANDIDA. Yes: he’s struggling with my luggage, poor boy. Go out, dear, at once; or he will pay for the cab; and I don’t want that. [Morell hurries out. Candida puts down her handbag; then takes off her mantle and bonnet and puts them on the sofa with the rug, chatting meanwhile.] Well, papa, how are you getting on at home?

      BURGESS. The ’ouse ain’t worth livin’ in since you left it, Candy. I wish you’d come round and give the gurl a talkin’ to. Who’s this Eugene that’s come with you?

      CANDIDA. Oh, Eugene’s one of James’s discoveries. He found him sleeping on the Embankment last June. Haven’t you noticed our new picture. [Pointing to the Virgin]? He gave us that.

      BURGESS. [Incredulously.] Garn! D’you mean to tell me—your hown father!—that cab touts or such like, orf the Embankment, buys pictur’s like that? [Severely.] Don’t deceive me, Candy: it’s a ’Igh Church pictur; and James chose it hisself.

      CANDIDA. Guess again. Eugene isn’t a cab tout.

      BURGESS. Then wot is he? [Sarcastically.] A nobleman, I ’spose.

      CANDIDA. [Delighted—nodding.] Yes. His uncle’s a peer—a real live earl.

      BURGESS. [Not daring to believe such good news.] No!

      CANDIDA. Yes. He had a seven day bill for 55 pounds in his pocket when James found him on the Embankment. He thought he couldn’t get any money for it until the seven days were up; and he was too shy to ask for credit. Oh, he’s a dear boy! We are very fond of him.

      BURGESS. [Pretending to belittle the aristocracy, but with his eyes gleaming.] Hm, I thort you wouldn’t git a piorr’s. (peer’s) nevvy visitin’ in Victoria Park unless he were a bit of a flat. [Looking again at the picture.] Of course I don’t ’old with that pictur, Candy; but still it’s a ’igh class, fust rate work of art: I can see that. Be sure you hintroduce me to him, Candy. [He looks at his watch anxiously.] I can only stay about two minutes. [Morell comes back with Eugene, whom Burgess contemplates moist-eyed with enthusiasm. He is a strange, shy youth of eighteen, slight, effeminate, with a delicate childish voice, and a hunted, tormented expression and shrinking manner that show the painful sensitiveness that very swift and acute apprehensiveness produces in youth, before the character has grown to its full strength. Yet everything that his timidity and frailty suggests is contradicted by his face. He is miserably irresolute, does not know where to stand or what to do with his hands and feet, is afraid of Burgess, and would run away into solitude if he dared; but the very intensity with which he feels a perfectly commonplace position shows great nervous force, and his nostrils and mouth show a fiercely petulant wilfulness, as to the quality of which his great imaginative eyes and fine brow are reassuring. He is so entirely uncommon as to be almost unearthly; and to prosaic people there is something noxious in this unearthliness, just as to poetic people there is something angelic in it. His dress is anarchic. He wears an old blue serge jacket, unbuttoned over a woollen lawn tennis shirt, with a silk handkerchief for a cravat, trousers matching the jacket, and brown canvas shoes. In these garments he has apparently lain in the heather and waded through the waters; but there is no evidence of his having ever brushed them.]

      [As he catches sight of a stranger on entering, he stops, and edges along the wall on the opposite side of the room.]

      MORELL. [As he enters.] Come along: you can spare us quarter of an hour, at all events. This is my father-in-law, Mr. Burgess—Mr. Marchbanks.

      MARCHBANKS. [Nervously backing against the bookcase.] Glad to meet you, sir.

      BURGESS. [Crossing to him with great heartiness, whilst Morell joins Candida at the fire.] Glad to meet you, I’m shore, Mr. Morchbanks. [Forcing him to shake hands.] ’Ow do you find yoreself this weather? ’Ope you ain’t lettin’ James put no foolish ideas into your ’ed?

      MARCHBANKS. Foolish ideas! Oh, you mean Socialism. No.

      BURGESS. That’s right. [Again looking at his watch.] Well, I must go now: there’s no ’elp for it. Yo’re not comin’ my way, are you, Mr. Morchbanks?

      MARCHBANKS. Which way is that?

      BURGESS. Victawriar Pork station. There’s a city train at 12.25.

      MORELL. Nonsense. Eugene will stay to lunch with us, I expect.

      MARCHBANKS. [Anxiously excusing. himself .] No—I—I—

      BURGESS. Well, well, I shan’t press you: I bet you’d rather lunch with Candy. Some night, I ’ope, you’ll come and dine with me at my club, the Freeman Founders in Nortn Folgit. Come, say you will.

      MARCHBANKS. Thank you, Mr. Burgess. Where is Norton Folgate—down in Surrey, isn’t it? [Burgess, inexpressibly tickled, begins to splutter with laughter.]

      CANDIDA. [Coming to the rescue.] You’ll lose your train, papa, if you don’t go at once. Come back in the afternoon and tell Mr. Marchbanks where to find the club.

      BURGESS. [Roaring with glee.] Down in Surrey—har, har! that’s not a bad one. Well, I never met a man as didn’t know Nortn Folgit before.[Abashed at his own noisiness.] Good-bye, Mr. Morchbanks: I know yo’re too ’ighbred to take my pleasantry in bad part. [He again offers his hand.]

      MARCHBANKS. [Taking it with a nervous jerk.] Not at all.

      BURGESS. Bye, bye, Candy. I’ll look in again later on. So long, James.

      MORELL. Must you go?

      BURGESS. Don’t stir. [He goes out with unabated heartiness.]

      MORELL. Oh, I’ll see you out. [He follows him out. Eugene stares after them apprehensively, holding his breath until Burgess disappears.]

      CANDIDA. [Laughing.] Well, Eugene. [He turns with a start and comes eagerly towards her, but stops irresolutely as he meets her amused look.] What do you think of my father?

      MARCHBANKS. I—I hardly know him yet. He seems to be a very nice old gentleman.

      CANDIDA. [With gentle irony.] And you’ll go to the Freeman Founders to dine with him, won’t you?

      MARCHBANKS. [Miserably, taking it quite seriously.] Yes, if it will please you.

      CANDIDA. [Touched.] Do you know, you are a very nice boy, Eugene, with all your queerness. If you had laughed at my father I shouldn’t have minded; but I like you ever so much better for being nice to him.

      MARCHBANKS. Ought I to have laughed? I noticed that he said something funny; but I am so ill at ease with strangers; and I never can see a joke! I’m very sorry. [He sits down on the sofa, his elbows on his knees and his temples between his fists, with an expression of hopeless suffering.]

      CANDIDA. [Bustling him goodnaturedly.] Oh, come! You great baby, you! You are worse than usual this morning. Why were you so melancholy as we came along in the cab?

      MARCHBANKS. Oh, that was nothing. I was wondering how much I ought to give the cabman. I know it’s utterly silly; but you don’t know how dreadful such things are to me—how I shrink from having to deal with strange people. [Quickly and reassuringly.] But it’s all right. He beamed all over and touched his hat when Morell gave him two shillings. I was on the point of offering him ten. [Candida laughs heartily. Morell comes back with a few letters and newspapers which have come by the midday post.]

      CANDIDA. Oh, James, dear, he was going to give the cabman ten shillings—ten shillings for a three minutes’ drive—oh, dear!

      MORELL. [At the table, glancing through the letters.] Never mind her, Marchbanks. The overpaying instinct is a generous one: better than the underpaying instinct, and not so common.

      MARCHBANKS. [Relapsing into dejection.] No: cowardice, incompetence. Mrs. Morell’s quite right.

      CANDIDA. Of course she is. [She takes up her handbag.] And now I must leave you to James for the present. I suppose you are too much of a poet to know the state a woman finds her house in when she’s been away for three weeks. Give me my rug. [Eugene takes the strapped rug from the couch, and gives it to her. She takes it in her left

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