her, coming from the garden.]
ROLF. Jill, I just wanted to say--Need we?
[JILL. nodes.]
Seeing you yesterday--it did seem rotten.
JILL. We didn't begin it.
ROLF. No; but you don't understand. If you'd made yourself, as
father has----
JILL. I hope I should be sorry.
ROLF. [Reproachfully] That isn't like you. Really he can't help
thinking he's a public benefactor.
JILL. And we can't help thinking he's a pig. Sorry!
ROLF. If the survival of the fittest is right----
JILL. He may be fitter, but he's not going to survive.
ROLF. [Distracted] It looks like it, though.
JILL. Is that all you came to say?
ROLF. Suppose we joined, couldn't we stop it?
JILL. I don't feel like joining.
ROLF. We did shake hands.
JILL. One can't fight and not grow bitter.
ROLF. I don't feel bitter.
JILL. Wait; you'll feel it soon enough.
ROLF. Why? [Attentively] About Chloe? I do think your mother's
manner to her is----
JILL. Well?
ROLF. Snobbish. [JILL laughs.]
She may not be your class; and that's just why it's
snobbish.
JILL. I think you'd better shut up.
ROLF. What my father said was true; your mother's rudeness to her
that day she came here, has made both him and Charlie ever so much
more bitter.
[JILL whistles the Habanera from "Carmen."]
[Staring at her, rather angrily]
Is it a whistling matter?
JILL. No.
ROLF. I suppose you want me to go?
JILL. Yes.
ROLF. All right. Aren't we ever going to be friends again?
JILL. [Looking steadily at him] I don't expect so.
ROLF. That's very-horrible.
JILL. Lots of horrible things in the world.
ROLF. It's our business to make them fewer, Jill.
JILL. [Fiercely] Don't be moral.
ROLF. [Hurt] That's the last thing I want to be.--I only want to
be friendly.
JILL. Better be real first.
ROLF. From the big point of view----
JILL. There isn't any. We're all out, for our own. And why not?
ROLF. By jove, you have got----
JILL. Cynical? Your father's motto--"Every man for himself."
That's the winner--hands down. Goodbye!
ROLF. Jill! Jill!
JILL. [Putting her hands behind her back, hums]--
"If auld acquaintance be forgot
And days of auld lang syne"----
ROLF. Don't!
[With a pained gesture he goes out towards Left, through the
French window.]
[JILL, who has broken off the song, stands with her hands
cl
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