as a waterfall.)
ROSALIND: Honestly, there are only two costumes in the world that I
really enjoy being in--(Combing her hair at the dressing-table.) One's
a hoop skirt with pantaloons; the other's a one-piece bathing-suit. I'm
quite charming in both of them.
CECELIA: Glad you're coming out?
ROSALIND: Yes; aren't you?
CECELIA: (Cynically) You're glad so you can get married and live on Long
Island with the _fast younger married set_. You want life to be a chain
of flirtation with a man for every link.
ROSALIND: _Want_ it to be one! You mean I've _found_ it one.
CECELIA: Ha!
ROSALIND: Cecelia, darling, you don't know what a trial it is to
be--like me. I've got to keep my face like steel in the street to keep
men from winking at me. If I laugh hard from a front row in the theatre,
the comedian plays to me for the rest of the evening. If I drop my
voice, my eyes, my handkerchief at a dance, my partner calls me up on
the 'phone every day for a week.
CECELIA: It must be an awful strain.
ROSALIND: The unfortunate part is that the only men who interest me at
all are the totally ineligible ones. Now--if I were poor I'd go on the
stage.
CECELIA: Yes, you might as well get paid for the amount of acting you
do.
ROSALIND: Sometimes when I've felt particularly radiant I've thought,
why should this be wasted on one man?
CECELIA: Often when you're particularly sulky, I've wondered why it
should all be wasted on just one family. (Getting up.) I think I'll go
down and meet Mr. Amory Blaine. I like temperamental men.
ROSALIND: There aren't any. Men don't know how to be really angry or
really happy--and the ones that do, go to pieces.
CECELIA: Well, I'm glad I don't have all your worries. I'm engaged.
ROSALIND: (With a scornful smile) Engaged? Why, you little lunatic!
If mother heard you talking like that she'd send you off to
boarding-school, where you belong.
CECELIA: You won't tell her, though, because I know things I could
tell--and you're too selfish!
ROSALIND: (A little annoyed) Run along, little girl! Who are you engaged
to, the iceman? the man that keeps the candy-store?
CECELIA: Cheap wit--good-by, darling, I'll see you later.
ROSALIND: Oh, be _sure_ and do that--you're such a help.
(Exit CECELIA. ROSALIND finished her hair and rises, humming. She goes
up to the mirror and starts to dance in front of it on the soft carpet.
She watches not her feet, but her eyes--never casually but alw
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