ears in shirt-sleeves at the door]
MRS. MILER. The lady wants a cab. Wait and carry 'er trunk down.
CLARE comes from the bedroom in her hat and coat.
MRS. MILER. [TO the PORTER] Now.
They go into the bedroom to get the trunk. CLARE picks up from
the floor the bunch of violets, her fingers play with it as if
they did not quite know what it was; and she stands by the
armchair very still, while MRS. MILER and the PORTER pass her
with trunk and bag. And even after the PORTER has shouldered
the trunk outside, and marched away, and MRS. MILER has come
back into the room, CLARE still stands there.
MRS. MILER. [Pointing to the typewriter] D'you want this 'ere, too?
CLARE. Yes.
MRS. MILER carries it out. Then, from the doorway, gazing at
CLARE taking her last look, she sobs, suddenly. At sound of
that sob CLARE throws up her head.
CLARE. Don't! It's all right. Good-bye!
She walks out and away, not looking back. MRS. MILER chokes her
sobbing into the black stuff of her thick old jacket.
CURTAIN
ACT IV
Supper-time in a small room at "The Gascony" on Derby Day.
Through the windows of a broad corridor, out of which the door
opens, is seen the dark blue of a summer night. The walls are
of apricot-gold; the carpets, curtains, lamp-shades, and gilded
chairs, of red; the wood-work and screens white; the palms in
gilded tubs. A doorway that has no door leads to another small
room. One little table behind a screen, and one little table in
the open, are set for two persons each. On a service-table,
above which hangs a speaking-tube, are some dishes of hors
d'ouvres, a basket of peaches, two bottles of champagne in
ice-pails, and a small barrel of oysters in a gilded tub. ARNAUD,
the waiter, slim, dark, quick, his face seamed with a quiet,
soft irony, is opening oysters and listening to the robust joy
of a distant supper-party, where a man is playing the last bars
of: "Do ye ken John Peel" on a horn. As the sound dies away, he
murmurs: "Tres Joli!" and opens another oyster. Two Ladies with
bare shoulders and large hats pass down the corridor. Their
talk is faintly wafted in: "Well, I never like Derby night! The
boys do get so bobbish!" "That horn--vulgar, I call it!"
ARNAUD'S eyebrows rise,
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