TREBELL. [Fastening to his subject again.] My point is this: A man's demand to know the exact structure of a fly's wing, and his assertion that it degrades any child in the street not to know such a thing, is a religious revival ... a token of spiritual hunger. What else can it be? And we commercialise our teaching!

CANTELUPE. I wouldn't have it so.

TREBELL. Then I'm offering you the foundation of a new Order of men and women who'll serve God by teaching his children. Now shall we finish the conversation in prose?

CANTELUPE. [Not to be put down.] What is the prose for God?

TREBELL. [Not to be put down either.] That's what we irreligious people are giving our lives to discover. [He plunges into detail.] I'm proposing to found about seventy-two new colleges, and of course, to bring the ones there are up to the new standard. Then we must gradually revise all teaching salaries in government schools ... to a scale I have in mind. Then the course must be compulsory and the training time doubled—

CANTELUPE. Doubled! Four years?

TREBELL. Well, a minimum of three ... a university course. Remember we're turning a trade into a calling.

CANTELUPE. There's more to that than taking a degree.

TREBELL. I think so. You've fought for years for your tests and your atmosphere with plain business men not able to understand such lunacy. Quite right ... atmosphere's all that matters. If one and one don't make two by God's grace....

CANTELUPE. Poetry again!

TREBELL. I beg your pardon. Well ... you've no further proof. If you can't plant your thumb on the earth and your little finger on the pole star you know nothing of distances. We must do away with text-book teachers.

CANTELUPE is opening out a little in spite of himself.

CANTELUPE. I'm waiting for our opinions to differ.

TREBELL. [Businesslike again.] I'll send you a draft of the statutes I propose within a week. Meanwhile shall I put the offer this way. If I accept your tests will you accept mine?

CANTELUPE. What are yours?

TREBELL. I believe if one provides for efficiency one provides for the best part of truth ... honesty of statement. I shall hope for a little more elasticity in your dogmas than Becket or Cranmer or Laud would have allowed. When you've a chance to re-formulate the reasons of your faith for the benefit of men teaching mathematics and science and history and political economy, you won't neglect to answer or allow for criticisms and doubts. I don't see why ... in spite of all the evidence to the contrary ... such a thing as progress in a definite religious faith is impossible.

CANTELUPE. Progress is a soiled word. [And now he weighs his words.] I shall be very glad to accept on the Church's behalf control of the teaching of teachers in these colleges.

TREBELL. Good. I want the best men.

CANTELUPE. You are surprisingly inexperienced if you think that creeds can ever become mere forms except to those who have none.

TREBELL. But teaching—true teaching—is learning, and the wish to know is going to prevail against any creed ... so I think. I wish you cared as little for the form in which a truth is told as I do. On the whole, you see, I think I shall manage to plant your theology in such soil this spring that the garden will be fruitful. On the whole I'm a believer in Churches of all sorts and their usefulness to the State. Your present use is out-worn. Have I found you in this the beginnings of a new one?

CANTELUPE. The Church says: Thank you, it is a very old one.

TREBELL. [Winding up the interview.] To be sure, for practical politics our talk can be whittled down to your accepting the secular solution for Primary Schools, if you're given these colleges under such statutes as you and I shall agree upon.

CANTELUPE. And the country will accept.

TREBELL. The country will accept any measure if there's enough money in it to bribe all parties fairly.

CANTELUPE. You expect very little of the constancy of my Church to her Faith, Mr. Trebell.

TREBELL. I have only one belief myself. That is in human progress—yes, progress—over many obstacles and by many means. I have no ideals. I believe it is statesmanlike to use all the energy you find ... turning it into the nearest channel that points forward.

CANTELUPE. Forward to what?

TREBELL. I don't know ... and my caring doesn't matter. We do know ... and if we deny it it's only to be encouraged by contradiction ... that the movement is forward and with some gathering purpose. I'm friends with any fellow traveller.

CANTELUPE has been considering him very curiously. Now he gets up to go.

CANTELUPE. I should like to continue our talk when I've studied your draft of the statutes. Of course the political position is favourable to a far more comprehensive bill than we had ever looked for ... and you've the advantage now of having held yourself very free from party ties. In fact not only will you give us the bill we shall most care to accept, but I don't know what other man would give us a bill we and the other side could accept at all.

TREBELL. I can let you have more Appropriation figures by Friday. The details of the Fabrics scheme will take a little longer.

CANTELUPE. In a way there's no such hurry. We're not in office yet.

TREBELL. When I'm building with figures I like to give the foundations time to settle. Otherwise they are the inexactest things.

CANTELUPE. [Smiling to him for the first time.] We shall have you finding Faith the only solvent of all problems some day.

TREBELL. I hope my mind is not afraid ... even of the Christian religion.

CANTELUPE. I am sure that the needs of the human soul ... be it dressed up in whatever knowledge ... do not alter from age to age....

He opens the door to find WEDGECROFT standing outside, watch in hand.

TREBELL. Hullo ... waiting?

WEDGECROFT. I was giving you two minutes by my watch. How are you, Cantelupe?

CANTELUPE, with a gesture which might be mistaken for a bow, folds himself up.

TREBELL. Shall I bring you the figures on Friday ... that might save time.

CANTELUPE, by taking a deeper fold in himself seems to assent.

TREBELL. Will the afternoon do? Kent shall fix the hour.

CANTELUPE. [With an effort.] Kent?

TREBELL. My secretary.

CANTELUPE. Friday. Any hour before five. I know my way.

The three phrases having meant three separate efforts, CANTELUPE escapes. WEDGECROFT has walked to the table, his brows a little puckered. Now TREBELL notices that KENT'S door is open; he goes quickly into the room and finds it empty. Then he stands for a moment irritable and undecided before returning.

TREBELL. Been here long?

WEDGECROFT. Five minutes ... more, I suppose.

TREBELL. Mrs. O'Connell gone?

WEDGECROFT. To her dressmaker's.

TREBELL. Frances forgot she was coming and went out.

WEDGECROFT. Pretty little fool of a woman! D'you know her husband?

TREBELL. No.

WEDGECROFT. Says she's been in Ireland with him since we met at Shapters. He has trouble with his tenantry.

TREBELL. Won't he sell or won't they purchase?

WEDGECROFT. Curious chap. A Don at Balliol when I first knew him. Warped of late years ... perhaps by his marriage.

TREBELL. [Dismissing that subject.] Well ... how's Percival?

WEDGECROFT. Better this morning. I told him I'd seen you ... and in a little calculated burst of confidence what I'd reason to think you were after. He said you and he could get on though you differed on every point; but he didn't see how you'd pull with such a blasted weak-kneed lot as the rest of the Horsham's cabinet would be. He'll be up in a week or ten days.

TREBELL. Can I see him?

WEDGECROFT. You might. I admire the old man ... the way he sticks to his party, though they misrepresent now most things he believes in!

TREBELL. What a damnable state to arrive at ... doubly damned by the fact you admire it.

WEDGECROFT. And to think that at this time of day you should need instructing in the ethics of party government. But I'll have to do it.

TREBELL. Not now. I've been at ethics with Cantelupe.

WEDGECROFT. Certainly not now. What about my man with the stomach-ache at twelve o'clock sharp! Good-bye.

He is gone, TREBELL battles with uneasiness and at last mutters. "Oh ... why didn't she wait?" Then the telephone bell rings. He goes quickly as if it were an answer to his anxiety. "Yes?" Of course, it isn't.. "Yes." He paces the room, impatient, wondering what to do. The Maid comes in to announce MISS DAVENPORT. LUCY follows her. She has gained lately perhaps a little of the joy which was lacking and at least she brings now into this room a breath of very wholesome womanhood.

LUCY. It's very good of you to let me come; I'm not going to keep you more than three minutes.

TREBELL. Sit down.

Only women unused to busy men would call him rude.

LUCY. What I want to say is ... don't mind my being engaged to Walter. It shan't interfere with his work for you. If you want a proof that it shan't ... it was I got Aunt Julia to ask you to take him.... Though he didn't know ... so don't tell him that.

TREBELL. You weren't engaged then.

LUCY. I ... thought that we might be.

TREBELL. [With cynical humour.] Which I'm not to tell him either?

LUCY. Oh, that wouldn't matter.

TREBELL. [With decision.] I'll make sure you don't interfere.

LUCY. [Deliberately ... not to be treated as a child.] You couldn't, you know, if I wanted to.

TREBELL. Why, is Walter a fool?

LUCY. He's very fond of me, if that's what you mean?

TREBELL looks at her for the first time and changes his tone a little.

TREBELL. If it was what I meant ... I'm disposed to withdraw the suggestion.

LUCY. And, because I'm fond of his work as well, I shan't therefore ask him to tell me things ... secrets.

TREBELL. [Reverting to his humour.] It'll be when you're a year or two married that danger may occur ... in his desperate effort to make conversation.

LUCY considers this and him quite seriously.

LUCY. You're rather hard on women, aren't you ... just because they don't have the chances men do.

TREBELL. Do you want the chances?

LUCY. I think I'm as clever as most men I meet, though I know less, of course.

TREBELL. Perhaps I should have offered you the secretaryship instead.

LUCY. [Readily.] Don't you think I'm taking it in a way ... by marrying Walter? That's fanciful of course. But marriage is a very general and complete sort of partnership, isn't it? At least, I'd like to make mine so.

TREBELL. He'll be more under your thumb in some things if you leave him free in others.

She receives the sarcasm in all seriousness and then speaks to him as she would to a child.

LUCY. Oh ... I'm not explaining what I mean quite well perhaps. Walter has been everywhere and done everything. He speaks three languages ... which all makes him an ideal private secretary.

TREBELL. Quite.

LUCY. Do you think he'd develop into anything else ... but for me?

TREBELL. So I have provided just a first step, have I?

LUCY. [With real enthusiasm.] Oh, Mr. Trebell, it's a great thing for us. There isn't anyone worth working under but you. You'll make him think and give him ideas instead of expecting them from him. But just for that reason he'd get so attached to you and be quite content to grow old in your shadow ... if it wasn't for me.

TREBELL. True ... I should encourage him in nothingness. What's more, I want extra brains and hands. It's not altogether a pleasant thing, is it ... the selfishness of the hard worked man?

LUCY. If you don't grudge your own strength, why should you be tender of other people's?

He looks at her curiously.

TREBELL. Your ambition is making for only second-hand satisfaction though.

LUCY. What's a woman to do? She must work through men, mustn't she?

TREBELL. I'm told that's degrading ... the influencing of husbands and brothers and sons.

LUCY. [Only half humorously.] But what else is one to do with them? Of course, I've enough money to live on ... so I could take up some woman's profession ... What are you smiling at?

TREBELL. [Who has smiled very broadly.] As you don't mean to ... don't stop while I tell you.

LUCY. But I'd sooner get married. I want to have children. [The words catch him and hold him. He looks at her reverently this time. She remembers she has transgressed convention; then, remembering that it is only convention, proceeds quite simply.] I hope we shall have children.

TREBELL. I hope so.

LUCY. Thank you. That's the first kind thing you've said.

TREBELL. Oh ... you can do without compliments, can't you?

She considers for a moment.

LUCY. Why have you been talking to me as if I were someone else?

TREBELL. [Startled.] Who else?

LUCY. No one particular. But you've shaken a moral fist so to speak. I don't think I provoked it.

TREBELL. It's a bad parliamentary habit. I apologise.

She gets up to go.

LUCY. Now I shan't keep you longer ... you're always busy. You've been so easy to talk to. Thank you very much.

TREBELL. Why ... I wonder?

LUCY. I knew you would be or I shouldn't have come. You think Life's an important thing, don't you? That's priggish, isn't it? Good-bye. We're coming to dinner ... Aunt Julia and I. Miss Trebell arrived to ask us just as I left.

TREBELL. I'll see you down.

LUCY. What waste of time for you. I know how the door opens.

As she goes out WALTER KENT is on the way to his room. The two nod to each other like old friends. TREBELL turns away with something of a sigh.

KENT. Just come?

LUCY. Just going.

KENT. I'll see you at dinner.

LUCY. Oh, are you to be here? ... that's nice.

LUCY departs as purposefully as she came. KENT hurries to TREBELL, whose thoughts are away again by now.

KENT. I haven't been long there and back, have I? The Bishop gave me these letters for you. He hasn't answered the last ... but I've his notes of what he means to say. He'd like them back to-night. He was just going out. I've one or two notes of what Evans said. Bit of a charlatan, don't you think?

TREBELL. Evans?

KENT. Well, he talked of his Flock. There are quite fifteen letters you'll have to deal with yourself, I'm afraid.

TREBELL stares at him: then, apparently, making up his mind....

TREBELL. Ring up a messenger, will you ... I must write a note and send it.

KENT. Will you dictate?

TREBELL. I shall have done it while you're ringing ... it's only a personal matter. Then we'll start work.

KENT goes into his room and tackles the telephone there. TREBELL sits down to write the note, his face very set and anxious.



THE THIRD ACT

At LORD HORSHAM'S house in Queen Anne's Gate, in the evening, a week later.

If rooms express their owners' character, the grey and black of LORD HORSHAM'S drawing room, the faded brocade of its furniture, reveal him as a man of delicate taste and somewhat thin intellectuality. He stands now before a noiseless fire, contemplating with a troubled eye either the pattern of the Old French carpet, or the black double doors of the library opposite, or the moulding on the Adams ceiling, which the flicker of all the candles casts into deeper relief. His grey hair and black clothes would melt into the decoration of his room, were the figure not rescued from such oblivion by the British white glaze of his shirt front and—to a sympathetic eye—by the loveable perceptive face of the man. Sometimes he looks at the sofa in front of him, on which sits WEDGECROFT, still in the frock coat of a busy day, depressed and irritable. With his back to them, on a sofa with its back to them, is GEORGE FARRANT, planted with his knees apart, his hands clasped, his head bent; very glum. And sometimes HORSHAM glances at the door, as if waiting for it to open. Then his gaze will travel back, up the long shiny black piano, with a volume of the Well Tempered Clavichord open on its desk, to where CANTELUPE is perched uncomfortably on the bench; paler than ever; more self-contained than ever, looking, to one who knows him as well as Horsham does, a little dangerous. So he returns to contemplation of the ceiling or the carpet. They wait there as men wait who have said all they want to say upon an unpleasant subject and yet cannot dismiss it. At last FARRANT breaks the silence.

FARRANT. What time did you ask him to come, Horsham?

HORSHAM. Eh ... O'Connell? I didn't ask him directly. What time did you say, Wedgecroft?

WEDGECROFT. Any time after half past ten, I told him.

FARRANT. [Grumbling.] It's a quarter to eleven. Doesn't Blackborough mean to turn up at all?

HORSHAM. He was out of town ... my note had to be sent after him. I couldn't wire, you see.

FARRANT. No.

CANTELUPE. It was by the merest chance your man caught me, Cyril. I was taking the ten fifteen to Tonbridge and happened to go to James Street first for some papers.

The conversation flags again.

CANTELUPE. But since Mrs. O'Connell is dead what is the excuse for a scandal?

At this unpleasant dig into the subject of their thoughts the three other men stir uncomfortably.

HORSHAM. Because the inquest is unavoidable ... apparently.

WEDGECROFT. [Suddenly letting fly.] I declare I'd I'd have risked penal servitude and given a certificate, but just before the end O'Connell would call in old Fielding Andrews, who has moral scruples about everything—it's his trademark—and of course about this...!

FARRANT. Was he told of the whole business?

WEDGECROFT. No ... O'Connell kept things up before him. Well ... the woman was dying.

HORSHAM. Couldn't you have kept the true state of the case from Sir Fielding?

WEDGECROFT. And been suspected of the malpractice myself if he'd found it out? ... which he would have done ... he's no fool. Well ... I thought of trying that....

FARRANT. My dear Wedgecroft ... how grossly quixotic! You have a duty to yourself.

HORSHAM. [Rescuing the conversation from unpleasantness.] I'm afraid I feel that our position to-night is most irregular, Wedgecroft.

WEDGECROFT. Still if you can make O'Connell see reason. And if you all can't.... [He frowns at the alternative.]

CANTELUPE. Didn't you say she came to you first of all?

WEDGECROFT. I met her one morning at Trebell's.

FARRANT. Actually at Trebell's!

WEDGECROFT. The day he came back from abroad.

FARRANT. Oh! No one seems to have noticed them together much at any time. My wife ... No matter!

WEDGECROFT. She tackled me as a doctor with one part of her trouble ... added she'd been with O'Connell in Ireland, which of course it turns out wasn't true ... asked me to help her. I had to say I couldn't.

HORSHAM. [Echoing rather than querying.] You couldn't.

FARRANT. [Shocked.] My dear Horsham!

WEDGECROFT. Well, if she'd told me the truth!... No, anyhow I couldn't. I'm sure there was no excuse. One can't run these risks.

FARRANT. Quite right, quite right.

WEDGECROFT. There are men who do on one pretext or another.

FARRANT. [Not too shocked to be curious.] Are there really?

WEDGECROFT. Oh yes, men well known ... in other directions. I could give you four addresses ... but of course I wasn't going to give her one. Though there again ... if she'd told me the whole truth!... My God, women are such fools! And they prefer quackery ... look at the decent doctors they simply turn into charlatans. Though, there again, that all comes of letting a trade work mysteriously under the thumb of a benighted oligarchy ... which is beside the question. But one day I'll make you sit up on the subject of the Medical Council, Horsham.

HORSHAM assumes an impenetrable air of statesmanship.

HORSHAM. I know. Very interesting ... very important ... very difficult to alter the status quo.

WEDGECROFT. Then the poor little liar said she'd go off to an appointment with her dressmaker; and I heard nothing more till she sent for me a week later, and I found her almost too ill to speak. Even then she didn't tell me the truth! So, when O'Connell arrived, of course I spoke to him quite openly and all he told me in reply was that it wouldn't have been his child.

FARRANT. Poor devil!

WEDGECROFT. O'Connell?

FARRANT. Yes, of course.

WEDGECROFT. I wonder. Perhaps she didn't realize he'd been sent for ... or felt then she was dying and didn't care ... or lost her head. I don't know.

FARRANT. Such a pretty little woman!

WEDGECROFT. If I could have made him out and dealt with him, of course, I shouldn't have come to you. Farrant's known him even longer than I have.

FARRANT. I was with him at Harrow.

WEDGECROFT. So I went to Farrant first.

That part of the subject drops. CANTELUPE, who has not moved, strikes in again.

CANTELUPE. How was Trebell's guilt discovered?

FARRANT. He wrote her one letter which she didn't destroy. O'Connell found it.

WEDGECROFT. Picked it up from her desk ... it wasn't even locked up.

FARRANT. Not twenty words in it ... quite enough though.

HORSHAM. His habit of being explicit ... of writing things down ... I know!

He shakes his head, deprecating all rashness. There is another pause. FARRANT, getting up to pace about, breaks it.

FARRANT. Look here, Wedgecroft, one thing is worrying me. Had Trebell any foreknowledge of what she did and the risk she was running and could he have stopped it?

WEDGECROFT. [Almost ill-temperedly.] How could he have stopped it?

FARRANT. Because ... well, I'm not a casuist ... but I know by instinct when I'm up against the wrong thing to do; and if he can't be cleared on that point I won't lift a finger to save him.

HORSHAM. [With nice judgment.] In using the term Any Foreknowledge, Farrant, you may be more severe on him than you wish to be.

FARRANT, unappreciative, continues.

FARRANT. Otherwise ... well, we must admit, Cantelupe, that if it hadn't been for the particular consequence of this it wouldn't be anything to be so mightily shocked about.

CANTELUPE. I disagree.

FARRANT. My dear fellow, it's our business to make laws and we know the difference of saying in one of 'em you may or you must. Who ever proposed to insist on pillorying every case of spasmodic adultery? One would never have done! Some of these attachments do more harm ... to the third party, I mean ... some less. But it's only when a menage becomes socially impossible that a sensible man will interfere. [He adds quite unnecessarily.] I'm speaking quite impersonally, of course.

CANTELUPE. [As coldly as ever.] Trebell is morally responsible for every consequence of the original sin.

WEDGECROFT. That is a hard saying.

FARRANT. [Continuing his own remarks quite independently.] And I put aside the possibility that he deliberately helped her to her death to save a scandal because I don't believe it is a possibility. But if that were so I'd lift my finger to help him to his. I'd see him hanged with pleasure.

WEDGECROFT. [Settling this part of the matter.] Well, Farrant, to all intents and purposes he didn't know and he'd have stopped it if he could.

FARRANT. Yes, I believe that. But what makes you so sure?

WEDGECROFT. I asked him and he told me.

FARRANT. That's no proof.

WEDGECROFT. You read the letter that he sent her ... unless you think it was written as a blind.

FARRANT. Oh ... to be sure ... yes. I might have thought of that.

He settles down again. Again no one has anything to say.

CANTELUPE. What is to be said to Mr. O'Connell when he comes?

HORSHAM. Yes ... what exactly do you propose we shall say to O'Connell, Wedgecroft?

WEDGECROFT. Get him to open his oyster of a mind and....

FARRANT. So it is and his face like a stone wall yesterday. Absolutely refused to discuss the matter with me!

CANTELUPE. May I ask, Cyril, why are we concerning ourselves with this wickedness at all?

HORSHAM. Just at this moment when we have official weight without official responsibility, Charles....

WEDGECROFT. I wish I could have let Percival out of bed, but these first touches of autumn are dangerous to a convalescent of his age.

HORSHAM. But you saw him, Farrant ... and he gave you his opinion, didn't he?

FARRANT. Last night ... yes.

HORSHAM. I suppose it's a pity Blackborough hasn't turned up.

FARRANT. Never mind him.

HORSHAM. He gets people to agree with him. That's a gift.

FARRANT. Wedgecroft, what is the utmost O'Connell will be called upon to do for us ... for Trebell?

WEDGECROFT. Probably only to hold his tongue at the inquest to-morrow. As far as I know there's no one but her maid to prove that Mrs. O'Connell didn't meet her husband some time in the summer. He'll be called upon to tell a lie or two by implication.

FARRANT. Cantelupe ... what does perjury to that extent mean to a Roman Catholic?

CANTELUPE'S face melts into an expression of mild amazement.

CANTELUPE. Your asking such a question shows that you would not understand my answer to it.

FARRANT. [Leaving the fellow to his subtleties.] Well, what about the maid?

WEDGECROFT. She may suspect facts but not names, I think. Why should they question her on such a point if O'Connell says nothing?

HORSHAM. He's really very late. I told ... [He stops.] Charles, I've forgotten that man's name again.

CANTELUPE. Edmunds, you said it was.

HORSHAM. Edmunds. Everybody's down at Lympne ... I've been left with a new man here and I don't know his name. [He is very pathetic.] I told him to put O'Connell in the library there. I thought that either Farrant or I might perhaps see him first and—

At this moment EDMUNDS comes in, and, with that air of discreet tact which he considers befits the establishment of a Prime Minister, announces, "Mr. O'Connell, my lord." As O'CONNELL follows him, HORSHAM can only try not to look too disconcerted. O'CONNELL, in his tightly buttoned frock coat, with his shaven face and close-cropped iron grey hair, might be mistaken for a Catholic priest; except that he has not also acquired the easy cheerfulness which professional familiarity with the mysteries of that religion seems to give. For the moment, at least, his features are so impassive that they may tell either of the deepest grief or the purest indifference; or it may be, merely of reticence on entering a stranger's room. He only bows towards HORSHAM'S half-proffered hand. With instinctive respect for the situation of this tragically made widower the men have risen and stand in various uneasy attitudes.

HORSHAM. Oh ... how do you do? Let me see ... do you know my cousin Charles Cantelupe? Yes ... we were expecting Russell Blackborough. Sir Henry Percival is ill. Do sit down.

O'CONNELL takes the nearest chair and gradually the others settle themselves; FARRANT seeking an obscure corner. But there follows an uncomfortable silence, which O'CONNELL at last breaks.

O'CONNELL. You have sent for me, Lord Horsham?

HORSHAM. I hope that by my message I conveyed no impression of sending for you.

O'CONNELL. I am always in some doubt as to by what person or persons in or out of power this country is governed. But from all I hear you are at the present moment approximately entitled to send for me.

The level music of his Irish tongue seems to give finer edge to his sarcasm.

HORSHAM. Well, Mr. O'Connell ... you know our request before we make it.

O'CONNELL. Yes, I understand that if the fact of Mr. Trebell's adultery with my wife were made as public as its consequences to her must be to-morrow, public opinion would make it difficult for you to include him in your cabinet.

HORSHAM. Therefore we ask you ... though we have no right to ask you ... to consider the particular circumstances and forget the man in the statesman, Mr. O'Connell.

O'CONNELL. My wife is dead. What have I to do at all with Mr. Trebell as a man? As a statesman I am in any case uninterested in him.

Upon this throwing of cold water, EDMUNDS returns to mention even more discreetly....

EDMUNDS. Mr. Blackborough is in the library, my lord.

HORSHAM. [Patiently impatient.] No, no ... here.

WEDGECROFT. Let me go.

HORSHAM. [To the injured EDMUNDS.] Wait ... wait.

WEDGECROFT. I'll put him au fait. I shan't come back.

HORSHAM. [Gratefully.] Yes, yes. [Then to EDMUNDS who is waiting with perfect dignity.] Yes ... yes ... yes.

EDMUNDS departs and WEDGECROFT makes for the library door, glad to escape.

O'CONNELL. If you are not busy at this hour, Wedgecroft, I should be grateful if you'd wait for me. I shall keep you, I think, but a very few minutes.

WEDGECROFT. [In his most matter-of-fact tone.] All right, O'Connell.

He goes into the library.

CANTELUPE. Don't you think, Cyril, it would be wiser to prevent your man coming into the room at all while we're discussing this?

HORSHAM. [Collecting his scattered tact.] Yes, I thought I had arranged that he shouldn't. I'm very sorry. He's a fool. However, there's no one else to come. Once more, Mr. O'Connell.... [He frames no sentence.]

O'CONNELL. I am all attention, Lord Horsham.

CANTELUPE with a self-denying effort has risen to his feet.

CANTELUPE. Mr. O'Connell I remain here almost against my will. I cannot think quite calmly about this double and doubly heinous sin. Don't listen to us while we make light of it. If we think of it as a political bother and ask you to smooth it away ... I am ashamed. But I believe I may not be wrong if I put it to you that, looking to the future and for the sake of your own Christian dignity, it may become you to be merciful. And I pray too ... I think we may believe ... that Mr. Trebell is feeling need of your forgiveness. I have no more to say. [He sits down again.]

O'CONNELL. It may be. I have never met Mr. Trebell.

HORSHAM. I tell you, Mr. O'Connell, putting aside Party, that your country has need of this man just at this time.

They hang upon O'CONNELL'S reply. It comes with deliberation.

O'CONNELL. I suppose my point of view must be an unusual one. I notice, at least, that twenty four hours and more has not enabled Farrant to grasp it.

FARRANT. For God's sake, O'Connell, don't be so cold-blooded. You have the life or death of a man's reputation to decide on.

O'CONNELL. [With a cold flash of contempt.] That's a petty enough thing now-a-days it seems to me. There are so many clever men ... and they are all so alike ... surely one will not be missed.

CANTELUPE. Don't you think that is only sarcasm, Mr. O'Connell?

The voice is so gently reproving that O'CONNELL must turn to him.

O'CONNELL. Will you please to make allowance, Lord Charles, for a mediaeval scholar's contempt of modern government? You at least will partly understand his horror as a Catholic at the modern superstitions in favour of popular opinion and control which it encourages. You see, Lord Horsham, I am not a party man, only a little less enthusiastic for the opposite cries than for his own. You appealed very strangely to my feelings of patriotism for this country; but you see even my own is—in the twentieth century—foreign to me. From my point of view neither Mr. Trebell, nor you, nor the men you have just defeated, nor any discoverable man or body of men will make laws which matter ... or differ in the slightest. You are all part of your age and you all voice—though in separate keys, or even tunes they may be—only the greed and follies of your age. That you should do this and nothing more is, of course, the democratic ideal. You will forgive my thinking tenderly of the statesmanship of the first Edward.

The library door opens and RUSSELL BLACKBOROUGH comes in. He has on evening clothes, complicated by a long silk comforter and the motoring cap which he carries.

HORSHAM. You know Russell Blackborough.

O'CONNELL. I think not.

BLACKBOROUGH. How d'you do?

O'CONNELL having bowed, BLACKBOROUGH having nodded, the two men sit down, BLACKBOROUGH with an air of great attention, O'CONNELL to continue his interrupted speech.

O'CONNELL. And you are as far from me in your code of personal morals as in your politics. In neither do you seem to realise that such a thing as passion can exist. No doubt you use the words Love and Hatred; but do you know that love and hatred for principles or persons should come from beyond a man? I notice you speak of forgiveness as if it were a penny in my pocket. You have been endeavouring for these two days to rouse me from my indifference towards Mr. Trebell. Perhaps you are on the point of succeeding ... but I do not know what you may rouse.

HORSHAM. I understand. We are much in agreement, Mr. O'Connell. What can a man be—who has any pretensions to philosophy—but helplessly indifferent to the thousands of his fellow creatures whose fates are intertwined with his?

O'CONNELL. I am glad that you understand. But, again ... have I been wrong to shrink from personal relations with Mr. Trebell? Hatred is as sacred a responsibility as love. And you will not agree with me when I say that punishment can be the salvation of a man's soul.

FARRANT. [With aggressive common sense.] Look here. O'Connell, if you're indifferent it doesn't hurt you to let him off. And if you hate him...! Well, one shouldn't hate people ... there's no room for it in this world.

CANTELUPE. [Quietly as ever.] We have some authority for thinking that the punishment of a secret sin is awarded by God secretly.

O'CONNELL. We have very poor authority, sir, for using God's name merely to fill up the gaps in an argument, though we may thus have our way easily with men who fear God more than they know him. I am not one of those. Yes, Farrant, you and your like have left little room in this world except for the dusty roads on which I notice you beginning once more to travel. The rule of them is the same for all, is it not ... from the tramp and the labourer to the plutocrat in his car? This is the age of equality; and it's a fine practical equality ... the equality of the road. But you've fenced the fields of human joy and turned the very hillsides into hoardings, Commercial opportunity is painted on them, I think.

FARRANT. [Not to be impressed.] Perhaps it is O'Connell. My father made his money out of newspapers and I ride in a motor car and you came from Holyhead by train. What has all that to do with it? Why can't you make up your mind? You know in this sort of case one talks a lot ... and then does the usual thing. You must let Trebell off and that's all about it.

O'CONNELL. Indeed. And do they still think it worth while to administer an oath to your witnesses?

He is interrupted by the flinging open of the door and the triumphant right-this-time-anyhow voice in which EDMUNDS announces "Mr. Trebell, my lord." The general consternation expresses itself through HORSHAM, who complains aloud and unreservedly.

HORSHAM. Good God.... No! Charles, I must give him notice at once ... he'll have to go. [He apologises to the company.] I beg your pardon.

By this time TREBELL is in the room and has discovered the stranger, who stands to face him without emotion or anger, BLACKBOROUGH'S face wears the grimmest of smiles, CANTELUPE is sorry, FARRANT recovers from the fit of choking which seemed imminent and EDMUNDS, dimly perceiving by now some fly in the perfect amber of his conduct, departs. The two men still face each other, FARRANT is prepared to separate them should they come to blows, and indeed is advancing in that anticipation when O'CONNELL speaks.

O'CONNELL. I am Justin O'Connell.

TREBELL. I guess that.

O'CONNELL. There's a dead woman between us, Mr. Trebell.

A tremor sweeps over TREBELL; then he speaks simply.

TREBELL. I wish she had not died.

O'CONNELL. I am called upon by your friends to save you from the consequences of her death. What have you to say about that?

TREBELL. I have been wondering what sort of expression the last of your care for her would find ... but not much. My wonder is at the power over me that has been given to something I despised.

Only O'CONNELL grasps his meaning. But he, stirred for the first time and to his very depths, drives it home.

O'CONNELL. Yes.... If I wanted revenge I have it. She was a worthless woman. First my life and now yours! Dead because she was afraid to bear your child, isn't she?

TREBELL. [In agony.] I'd have helped that if I could.

O'CONNELL. Not the shame ... not the wrong she had done me ... but just fear—fear of the burden of her woman-hood. And because of her my children are bastards and cannot inherit my name. And I must live in sin against my church, as—God help me—I can't against my nature. What are men to do when this is how women use the freedom we have given them? Is the curse of barrenness to be nothing to a man? And that's the death in life to which you gentlemen with your fine civilisation are bringing us. I think we are brothers in misfortune, Mr. Trebell.

TREBELL. [Far from responding.] Not at all, sir. If you wanted children you did the next best thing when she left you. My own problem is neither so simple nor is it yet anyone's business but my own. I apologise for alluding to it.

HORSHAM takes advantage of the silence that follows.

HORSHAM. Shall we....

O'CONNELL. [Measuring TREBELL with his eyes.] And by which shall I help you to a solution ... telling lies or the truth to-morrow?

TREBELL. [Roughly, almost insolently.] If you want my advice ... I should do the thing that comes more easily to you, or that will content you most. If you haven't yet made up your mind as to the relative importance of my work and your conscience, it's too late to begin now. Nothing you may do can affect me.

HORSHAM. [fluttering fearfully into this strange dispute.] O'Connell ... if you and I were to join Wedgecroft....

O'CONNELL. You value your work more than anything else in the world?

TREBELL. Have I anything else in the world?

O'CONNELL. Have you not? [With grim ambiguity.] Then I am sorry for you, Mr. Trebell. [Having said all he had to say, he notices HORSHAM.] Yes, Lord Horsham, by all means....

Then HORSHAM opens the library door and sees him safely through. He passes TREBELL without any salutation, nor does TREBELL turn after him; but when HORSHAM also is in the library and the door is closed, comments viciously.

TREBELL. The man's a sentimentalist ... like all men who live alone or shut away. [Then surveying his three glum companions, bursts out.] Well...? We can stop thinking of this dead woman, can't we? It's a waste of time.

FARRANT. Trebell, what did you want to come here for?

TREBELL. Because you thought I wouldn't. I knew you'd be sitting round, incompetent with distress, calculating to a nicety the force of a scandal....

BLACKBOROUGH. [With the firmest of touches.] Horsham has called some of us here to discuss the situation. I am considering my opinion.

TREBELL. You are not, Blackborough. You haven't recovered yet from the shock of your manly feelings. Oh, cheer up. You know we're an adulterous and sterile generation. Why should you cry out at a proof now and then of what's always in the hearts of most of us?

FARRANT. [Plaintively.] Now, for God's sake, Trebell ... O'Connell has been going on like that.

TREBELL. Well then ... think of what matters.

BLACKBOROUGH. Of you and your reputation in fact.

FARRANT. [Kindly.] Why do you pretend to be callous?

He strokes TREBELL'S shoulder, who shakes him off impatiently.

TREBELL. Do you all mean to out-face the British Lion with me after to-morrow ... dare to be Daniels?

BLACKBOROUGH. Bravado won't carry this off.

TREBELL. Blackborough ... it would immortalize you. I'll stand up in my place in the House of Commons and tell everything that has befallen soberly and seriously. Why should I flinch?

FARRANT. My dear Trebell, if your name comes out at the inquest—

TREBELL. If it does!... whose has been the real offence against Society ... hers or mine? It's I who am most offended ... if I choose to think so.

BLACKBOROUGH. You seem to forget the adultery.

TREBELL. Isn't Death divorce enough for her? And ... oh, wasn't I right?... What do you start thinking of once the shock's over? Punishment ... revenge ... uselessness ... waste of me.

FARRANT. [With finality.] If your name comes out at the inquest, to talk of anything but retirement from public life is perfect lunacy ... and you know it.

HORSHAM comes back from the passage. He is a little distracted; then the more so at finding himself again in a highly-charged atmosphere.

HORSHAM. He's gone off with Wedgecroft.

TREBELL. [Including HORSHAM now in his appeal.] Does anyone think he knows me now to be a worse man ... less fit, less able ... than he did a week ago?

From the piano-stool comes CANTELUPE'S quiet voice.

CANTELUPE. Yes, Trebell ... I do.

TREBELL wheels round at this and ceases all bluster.

TREBELL. On what grounds?

CANTELUPE. Unarguable ones.

HORSHAM. [Finding refuge again in his mantelpiece.] You know, he has gone off without giving me his promise.

FARRANT. That's your own fault, Trebell.

HORSHAM. The fool says I didn't give him explicit instructions.

FARRANT. What fool?

HORSHAM. That man ... [The name fails him.] ... my new man. One of those touches of Fate's little finger, really.

He begins to consult the ceiling and the carpet once more. TREBELL tackles CANTELUPE with gravity.

TREBELL. I have only a logical mind, Cantelupe. I know that to make myself a capable man I've purged myself of all the sins ... I never was idle enough to commit. I know that if your God didn't make use of men, sins and all ... what would ever be done in the world? That one natural action, which the slight shifting of a social law could have made as negligible as eating a meal, can make me incapable ... takes the linch-pin out of one's brain, doesn't it?

HORSHAM. Trebell, we've been doing our best to get you out of this mess. Your remarks to O'Connell weren't of any assistance, and....

CANTELUPE stands up, so momentously that HORSHAM'S gentle flow of speech dries up.

CANTELUPE. Perhaps I had better say at once that, whatever hushing up you may succeed in, it will be impossible for me to sit in a cabinet with Mr. Trebell.

It takes even FARRANT a good half minute to recover his power of speech on this new issue.

FARRANT. What perfect nonsense, Cantelupe! I hope you don't mean that.

BLACKBOROUGH. Complication number one, Horsham.

FARRANT. [Working up his protest.] Why on earth not? You really mustn't drag your personal feelings and prejudices into important matters like this ... matters of state.

CANTELUPE. I think I have no choice, when Trebell stands convicted of a mortal sin, of which he has not even repented.

TREBELL. [With bitterest cynicism.] Dictate any form of repentance you like ... my signature is yours.

CANTELUPE. Is this a matter for intellectual jugglery?

TREBELL. [His defence failing at last.] I offered to face the scandal from my place in the House. That was mad, wasn't it....

BLACKBOROUGH—his course mapped out—changes the tone of the discussion.

BLACKBOROUGH. Horsham, I hope Trebell will believe I have no personal feelings in this matter, but we may as well face the fact even now that O'Connell holding his tongue to-morrow won't stop gossip in the House, club gossip, gossip in drawing rooms. What do the Radicals really care so long as a scandal doesn't get into the papers! There's an inner circle with its eye on us.

FARRANT. Well, what does that care as long as scandal's its own copyright? Do you know, my dear father refused a peerage because he felt it meant putting blinkers on his best newspaper.

BLACKBOROUGH. [A little subtly.] Still ... now you and Horsham are cousins, aren't you?

FARRANT. [Off the track and explanatory.] No, no ... my wife's mother....

BLACKBOROUGH. I'm inaccurate, for I'm not one of the family circle myself. My money gets me here and any skill I've used in making it. It wouldn't keep me at a pinch. And Trebell ... [He speaks through his teeth.] ... do you think your accession to power in the party is popular at the best? Who is going to put out a finger to make it less awkward for Horsham to stick to you if there's a chance of your going under?

TREBELL smiles at some mental picture he is making.

TREBELL. Can your cousins and aunts make it so awkward for you, Horsham?

HORSHAM. [Repaying humour with humour.] I bear up against their affectionate attentions.

TREBELL. But I quite understand how uncongenial I may be. What made you take up with me at all?

FARRANT. Your brains, Trebell.

TREBELL. He should have enquired into my character first, shouldn't he, Cantelupe?

CANTELUPE. [With crushing sincerity.] Yes.

TREBELL. Oh, the old unnecessary choice ... Wisdom or Virtue. We all think we must make it ... and we all discover we can't. But if you've to choose between Cantelupe and me, Horsham, I quite see you've no choice.

HORSHAM now takes the field, using his own weapons.

HORSHAM. Charles, it seems to me that we are somewhat in the position of men who have overheard a private conversation. Do you feel justified in making public use of it?

CANTELUPE. It is not I who am judge. God knows I would not sit in judgment upon anyone.

TREBELL. Cantelupe, I'll take your personal judgment if you can give it me.

FARRANT. Good Lord, Cantelupe, didn't you sit in a cabinet with ... Well, we're not here to rake up old scandals.

BLACKBOROUGH. I am concerned with the practical issue.

HORSHAM. We know, Blackborough. [Having quelled the interruption he proceeds.] Charles, you spoke, I think, of a mortal sin.

CANTELUPE. In spite of your lifted eyebrows at the childishness of the word.

HORSHAM. Theoretically, we must all wish to guide ourselves by eternal truths. But you would admit, wouldn't you, that we can only deal with temporal things?

CANTELUPE. [Writhing slightly under the sceptical cross-examination.] There are divine laws laid down for our guidance ... I admit no disbelief in them.

HORSHAM. Do they place any time-limit to the effect of a mortal sin? If this affair were twenty years old would you do as you are doing? Can you forecast the opinion you will have of it six months hence?

CANTELUPE. [Positively.] Yes.

HORSHAM. Can you? Nevertheless I wish you had postponed your decision even till to-morrow.

Having made his point he looks round almost for approval.

BLACKBOROUGH. What had Percival to say on the subject, Farrant?

FARRANT. I was only to make use of his opinion under certain circumstances.

BLACKBOROUGH. So it isn't favourable to your remaining with us, Mr. Trebell.

FARRANT. [Indignantly emerging from the trap.] I never said that.

Now TREBELL gives the matter another turn, very forcefully.

TREBELL. Horsham ... I don't bow politely and stand aside at this juncture as a gentleman should, because I want to know how the work's to be done if I leave you what I was to do.

BLACKBOROUGH. Are we so incompetent?

TREBELL. I daresay not. I want to know ... that's all.

CANTELUPE. Please understand, Mr. Trebell, that I have in no way altered my good opinion of your proposals.

BLACKBOROUGH. Well, I beg to remind you, Horsham, that from the first I've reserved myself liberty to criticise fundamental points in the scheme.

HORSHAM. [Pacifically.] Quite so ... quite so.

BLACKBOROUGH. That nonsensical new standard of teachers' salaries for one thing ... you'd never pass it.

HORSHAM. Quite easily. It's an administrative point, so leave the legislation vague. Then, as the appropriation money falls in, the qualifications rise and the salaries rise. No one will object because no one will appreciate it but administrators past or future ... and they never cavil at money. [He remains lost in the beauty of this prospect.]

TREBELL. Will you take charge of the bill, Blackborough?

BLACKBOROUGH. Are you serious?

HORSHAM. [Brought to earth.] Oh no! [He corrects himself smiling.] I mean, my dear Blackborough, why not stick to the Colonies?

BLACKBOROUGH. You see, Trebell, there's still the possibility that O'Connell may finally spike your gun to-morrow. You realise that, don't you?

TREBELL. Thank you. I quite realise that.

CANTELUPE. Can nothing further be done?

BLACKBOROUGH. Weren't we doing our best?

HORSHAM. Yes ... if we were bending our thoughts to that difficulty now....

TREBELL. [Hardly.] May I ask you to interfere on my behalf no further?

FARRANT. My dear Trebell!

TREBELL. I assure you that I am interested in the Disestablishment Bill.

So they turn readily enough from the more uncomfortable part of their subject.

BLACKBOROUGH. Well ... here's Farrant.

FARRANT. I'm no good. Give me Agriculture.

BLACKBOROUGH. Pity you're in the Lords, Horsham.

TREBELL. Horsham, I'll devil for any man you choose to name ... feed him sentence by sentence....

HORSHAM. That's impossible.

TREBELL. Well, what's to become of my bill? I want to know.

BLACKBOROUGH. [Casting his care on Providence.] We shall manage somehow. Why, if you had died suddenly ... or let us say, never been born....

TREBELL. Then, Blackborough ... speaking as a dying man ... if you go back on the integrity of this scheme, I'll haunt you. [Having said this with some finality, he turns his back.]

CANTELUPE. Cyril, I agree with what Trebell is saying. Whatever happens there must be no tampering with the comprehensiveness of the scheme. Remember you are in the hands of the extremists ... on both sides. I won't support a compromise on one ... nor will they on the other.

HORSHAM. Well, I'll confess to you candidly, Trebell, that I don't know of any man available for this piece of work but you.

TREBELL. Then I should say it would be almost a relief to you if O'Connell tells on me to-morrow.

FARRANT. We seem to have got off that subject altogether. [There comes a portentous tap at the door.] Good Lord!... I'm getting jumpy.

HORSHAM. Excuse me.

A note is handed to him through the half opened door; and obviously it is at EDMUNDS whom he frowns. Then he returns fidgetting for his glasses.

Oh, it turns out ... I'm so sorry you were blundered in here, Trebell ... this man ... what's his name ... Edwards ... had been reading the papers and thought it was a cabinet council ... seemed proud of himself. This is from Wedgecroft ... scribbled in a messenger office. I never can read his writing ... it's like prescriptions. Can you?

It has gradually dawned on the three men and then on TREBELL what this note may have in it. FARRANT hand even trembles a little as he takes it. He gathers the meaning himself and looks at the others with a smile before he reads the few words aloud.

FARRANT. "All right. He has promised."

BLACKBOROUGH. O'Connell?

FARRANT. Thank God. [He turns enthusiastically to TREBELL who stands rigid.] My dear fellow ... I hope you know how glad I am.

CANTELUPE. I am very glad.

BLACKBOROUGH. Of course we're all very glad indeed, Trebell ... very glad we persuaded him.

FARRANT. That's dead and buried now, isn't it?

TREBELL moves away from them all and leaves them wondering. When he turns round his face is as hard as ever; his voice, if possible, harder.

TREBELL. But, Horsham, returning to the more important question ... you've taken trouble, and O'Connell's to perjure himself for nothing if you still can't get me into your child's puzzle ... to make the pretty picture that a Cabinet should be.

HORSHAM looks at BLACKBOROUGH and scents danger.

HORSHAM. We shall all be glad, I am sure, to postpone any further discussion....

TREBELL. I shall not.

BLACKBOROUGH. [Encouragingly.] Quite so, Trebell. We're on the subject, and it won't discount our pleasure that you're out of this mess, to continue it. This habit of putting off the hour of disagreement is ... well, Horsham, it's contrary to my business instincts.

TREBELL. If one time's as good as another for you ... this moment is better than most for me.

HORSHAM. [A little irritated at the wantonness of this dispute.] There is nothing before us on which we are capable of coming to any decision ... in a technical sense.

BLACKBOROUGH. That's a quibble. [Poor HORSHAM gasps.] I'm not going to pretend either now or in a month's time that I think Trebell anything but a most dangerous acquisition to the party. I pay you a compliment in that, Trebell. Now, Horsham proposes that we should go to the country when Disestablishment's through.

HORSHAM. It's the condition of Nonconformist support.

BLACKBOROUGH. One condition. Then you'd leave us, Trebell?

HORSHAM. I hope not.

BLACKBOROUGH. And carry with you the credit of our one big measure. Consider the effect upon our reputation with the Country.

FARRANT. [Waking to BLACKBOROUGH'S line of action.] Why on earth should you leave us, Trebell? You've hardly been a Liberal, even in name.

BLACKBOROUGH. [Vigorously making his point.] Then what would be the conditions of your remaining? You're not a party man, Trebell. You haven't the true party feeling. You are to be bought. Of course you take your price in measures, not in money. But you are preeminently a man of ideas ... an expert. And a man of ideas is often a grave embarrassment to a government.

HORSHAM. And vice-versa ... vice-versa!

TREBELL. [Facing BLACKBOROUGH across the room.] Do I understand that you for the good of the Tory party ... just as Cantelupe for the good of his soul ... will refuse to sit in a cabinet with me.

BLACKBOROUGH. [Unembarrassed.] I don't commit myself to saying that.

CANTELUPE. No, Trebell ... it's that I must believe your work could not prosper ... in God's way.

TREBELL softens to his sincerity.

TREBELL. Cantelupe, I quite understand. You may be right ... it's a very interesting question. Blackborough, I take it that you object first of all to the scheme that I'm bringing you.

BLACKBOROUGH. I object to those parts of it which I don't think you'll get through the House.

FARRANT. [Feeling that he must take part.] For instance?

BLACKBOROUGH. I've given you one already.

CANTELUPE. [His eye on BLACKBOROUGH.] Understand there are things in that scheme we must stand or fall by.

Suddenly TREBELL makes for the door, HORSHAM gets up concernedly.

TREBELL. Horsham, make up your mind to-night whether you can do with me or not. I have to see Percival again to-morrow ... we cut short our argument at the important point. Good-bye ... don't come down. Will you decide to-night?

HORSHAM. I have made up my own mind.

TREBELL. Is that sufficient?

HORSHAM. A collective decision is a matter of development.

TREBELL. Well, I shall expect to hear.

HORSHAM. By hurrying one only reaches a rash conclusion.

TREBELL. Then be rash for once and take the consequences. Good-night.

He is gone before HORSHAM can compose another epigram.

BLACKBOROUGH. [Deprecating such conduct.] Lost his temper!

FARRANT. [Ruffling considerably.] Horsham, if Trebell is to be hounded out of your cabinet ... he won't go alone.

HORSHAM. [Bitter-sweet.] My dear Farrant ... I have yet to form my cabinet.

CANTELUPE. You are forming it to carry disestablishment, are you not, Cyril? Therefore you will form it in the best interests of the best scheme possible.

HORSHAM. Trebell was and is the best man I know of for the purpose. I'm a little weary of saying that.

He folds his arms and awaits further developments. After a moment CANTELUPE gets up as if to address a meeting.

CANTELUPE. Then if you would prefer not to include me ... I shall feel justified in giving independent support to a scheme I have great faith in. [And he sits down again.]

BLACKBOROUGH. [Impatiently.] My dear Cantelupe, if you think Horsham can form a disestablishment cabinet to include Trebell and exclude you, you're vastly mistaken. I for one....

FARRANT. But do both of you consider how valuable, how vital Trebell is to us just at this moment? The Radicals trust him....

BLACKBOROUGH. They hate him.

HORSHAM. [Elucidating.] Their front bench hates him because he turned them out. The rest of them hate their front bench. After six years of office, who wouldn't?

BLACKBOROUGH. That's true.

FARRANT. Oh, of course, we must stick to Trebell, Blackborough.

BLACKBOROUGH is silent; so HORSHAM turns his attention to his cousin.

HORSHAM. Well, Charles, I won't ask you for a decision now. I know how hard it is to accept the dictates of other men's consciences ... but a necessary condition of all political work; believe me.

CANTELUPE. [Uneasily.] You can form your cabinet without me, Cyril.

At this BLACKBOROUGH charges down on them, so to speak.

BLACKBOROUGH. No, I tell you, I'm damned if he can. Leaving the whole high church party to blackmail all they can out of us and vote how they like! Here ... I've got my Yorkshire people to think of. I can bargain for them with you in a cabinet ... not if you've the pull of being out of it.

HORSHAM. [With charming insinuation.] And have you calculated, Blackborough, what may become of us if Trebell has the pull of being out of it?

BLACKBOROUGH makes a face.

BLACKBOROUGH. Yes ... I suppose he might turn nasty.

FARRANT. I should hope he would.

BLACKBOROUGH.[Tackling FARRANT with great ease.] I should hope he would consider the matter not from the personal, but from the political point of view ... as I am trying to do.

HORSHAM. [Tasting his epigram with enjoyment.] Introspection is the only bar to such an honourable endeavour, [BLACKBOROUGH gapes.] You don't suffer from that as—for instance—Charles here, does.

BLACKBOROUGH. [Pugnaciously.] D'you mean I'm just pretending not to attack him personally?

HORSHAM. [Safe on his own ground.] It's only a curious metaphysical point. Have you never noticed your distaste for the colour of a man's hair translate itself ultimately into an objection to his religious opinions ... or what not? I am sure—for instance—I could trace Charles's scruples about sitting in a cabinet with Trebell back to a sort of academic reverence for women generally which he possesses. I am sure I could ... if he were not probably now doing it himself. But this does not make the scruples less real, less religious, or less political. We must be humanly biased in expression ... or not express ourselves.

BLACKBOROUGH. [Whose thoughts have wandered.] The man's less of a danger than he was ... I mean he'll be alone. The Liberals won't have him back. He smashed his following there to come over to us.

FARRANT. [Giving a further meaning to this.] Yes, Blackborough, he did.

BLACKBOROUGH. To gain his own ends! Oh, my dear Horsham, can't you see that if O'Connell had blabbed to-morrow it really would have been a blessing in disguise? I don't pretend to Cantelupe's standard ... but there must be something radically wrong with a man who could get himself into such a mess as that ... now mustn't there? Ah! ... you have a fatal partiality for clever people. I tell you ... though this might be patched up ... Trebell would fail us in some other way before we were six months older.

This speech has its effect; but HORSHAM looks at him a little sternly.

HORSHAM. And am I to conclude that you don't want Charles to change his mind?

BLACKBOROUGH. [On another tack.] Farrant has not yet allowed us to hear Percival's opinion.

FARRANT looks rather alarmed.

FARRANT. It has very little reference to the scandal.

BLACKBOROUGH. As that is at an end ... all the more reason we should hear it.

HORSHAM. [Ranging himself with FARRANT.] I called this quite informal meeting, Blackborough, only to dispose of the scandal, if possible.

BLACKBOROUGH. Well, of course, if Farrant chooses to insult Percival so gratuitously by burking his message to us....

There is an unspoken threat in this, HORSHAM sees it and without disguising his irritation....

HORSHAM. Let us have it, Farrant.

FARRANT. [With a sort of puzzled discontent.] Well ... I never got to telling him of the O'Connell affair at all. He started talking to me ... saying that he couldn't for a moment agree to Trebell's proposals for the finance of his bill ... I couldn't get a word in edgeways. Then his wife came up....

HORSHAM takes something in this so seriously that he actually interrupts.

HORSHAM. Does he definitely disagree? What is his point?

FARRANT. He says Disestablishment's a bad enough speculation for the party as it is.

BLACKBOROUGH. It is inevitable.

FARRANT. He sees that. But then he says ... to go to the country again having bolstered up Education and quarrelled with everybody will be bad enough ... to go having spent fifty millions on it will dish us all for our lifetimes.

HORSHAM. What does he propose?

FARRANT. He'll offer to draft another bill and take it through himself. He says ... do as many good turns as we can with the money ... don't put it all on one horse.

BLACKBOROUGH. He's your man, Horsham. That's one difficulty settled.

HORSHAM'S thoughts are evidently beyond BLACKBOROUGH, beyond the absent PERCIVAL even.

HORSHAM. Oh ... any of us could carry that sort of a bill.

CANTELUPE has heard this last passage with nothing less than horror and pale anger, which he contains no longer.

CANTELUPE. I won't have this. I won't have this opportunity frittered away for party purposes.

BLACKBOROUGH. [Expostulating reasonably.] My dear Cantelupe ... you'll get whatever you think it right for the Church to have. You carry a solid thirty eight votes with you.

HORSHAM'S smooth voice intervenes. He speaks with finesse.

HORSHAM. Percival, as an old campaigner, expresses himself very roughly. The point is, that we are after all only the trustees of the party. If we know that a certain step will decimate it ... clearly we have no right to take the step.

CANTELUPE. [Glowing to white heat.] Is this a time to count the consequences to ourselves?

HORSHAM. [Unkindly.] By your action this evening, Charles, you evidently think not. [He salves the wound.] No matter, I agree with you ... the bill should be a comprehensive one, whoever brings it in.

BLACKBOROUGH. [Not without enjoyment of the situation.] Whoever brings it in will have to knuckle under to Percival over its finance.

FARRANT. Trebell won't do that. I warned Percival.

HORSHAM. Then what did he say?

FARRANT. He only swore.

HORSHAM suddenly becomes peevish.

HORSHAM. I think, Farrant, you should have given me this message before.

FARRANT. My dear Horsham, what had it to do with our request to O'Connell?

HORSHAM. [Scolding the company generally.] Well then, I wish he hadn't sent it. I wish we were not discussing these points at all. The proper time for them is at a cabinet meeting. And when we have actually assumed the responsibilities of government ... then threats of resignation are not things to be played about with.

FARRANT. Did you expect Percival's objection to the finance of the scheme?

HORSHAM. Perhaps ... perhaps. I knew Trebell was to see him last Tuesday. I expect everybody's objections to any parts of every scheme to come at a time when I am in a proper position to reconcile them ... not now.

Having vented his grievances he sits down to recover. BLACKBOROUGH takes advantage of the ensuing pause.

BLACKBOROUGH. It isn't so easy for me to speak against Trebell, since he evidently dislikes me personally as much as I dislike him ... but I'm sure I'm doing my duty. Horsham ... here you have Cantelupe who won't stand in with the man, and Percival who won't stand in with his measure, while I would sooner stand in with neither. Isn't it better to face the situation now than take trouble to form the most makeshift of Cabinets, and if that doesn't go to pieces, be voted down in the House by your own party?

There is an oppressive silence, HORSHAM is sulky. The matter is beyond FARRANT. CANTELUPE whose agonies have expressed themselves in slight writhings, at last, with an effort, writhes himself to his feet.

CANTELUPE. I think I am prepared to reconsider my decision.

FARRANT. That's all right then!

He looks round wonderingly for the rest of the chorus to find that neither BLACKBOROUGH nor HORSHAM have stirred.

BLACKBOROUGH. [Stealthily.] Is it, Horsham?

HORSHAM. [Sotto voce.] Why did you ever make it?

BLACKBOROUGH leaves him for CANTELUPE.

BLACKBOROUGH. You're afraid for the integrity of the bill.

CANTELUPE. It must be comprehensive ... that's vital. BLACKBOROUGH. [Very forcefully.] I give you my word to support its integrity, if you'll keep with me in persuading Horsham that the inclusion of Trebell in his cabinet will be a blow to the whole Conservative Cause. Horsham, I implore you not to pursue this short-sighted policy. All parties have made up their minds to Disestablishment ... surely nothing should be easier than to frame a bill which will please all parties.

FARRANT. [At last perceiving the drift of all this.] But good Lord, Blackborough ... now Cantelupe has come round and will stand in ...

BLACKBOROUGH. That's no longer the point. And what's all this nonsense about going to the country again next year?

HORSHAM. [Mildly.] After consulting me Percival said at Bristol....

BLACKBOROUGH. [Quite unchecked.] I know. But if we pursue a thoroughly safe policy and the bye-elections go right ... there need be no vote of censure carried for three or four years. The Radicals want a rest with the country and they know it. And one has no right, what's more, to go wantonly plunging the country into the expenses of these constant general elections. It ruins trade.

FARRANT. [Forlornly sticking to his point.] What has all this to do with Trebell?

HORSHAM. [Thoughtfully.] Farrant, beyond what you've told us, Percival didn't recommend me to throw him over.

FARRANT. No, he didn't ... that is, he didn't exactly.

HORSHAM. Well ... he didn't?

FARRANT. I'm trying to be accurate! [Obviously their nerves are now on edge.] He said we should find him tough to assimilate—as he warned you.

HORSHAM with knit brows, loses himself in thought again, BLACKBOROUGH quietly turns his attention to FARRANT.

BLACKBOROUGH. Farrant, you don't seriously think that ... outside his undoubted capabilities ... Trebell is an acquisition to the party?

FARRANT. [Unwillingly.] Perhaps not. But if you're going to chuck a man ... don't chuck him when he's down.

BLACKBOROUGH. He's no longer down. We've got him O'Connell's promise and jolly grateful he ought to be. I think the least we can do is to keep our minds clear between Trebell's advantage and the party's.

CANTELUPE. [From the distant music-stool.] And the party's and the Country's.

BLACKBOROUGH. [Countering quite deftly.] Cantelupe, either we think it best for the country to have our party in power or we don't.

FARRANT. [In judicious temper.] Certainly, I don't feel our responsibility towards him is what it was ten minutes ago. The man has other careers besides his political one.

BLACKBOROUGH. [Ready to praise.] Clever as paint at the Bar—best Company lawyer we've got.

CANTELUPE. It is not what he loses, I think ... but what we lose in losing him.

He says this so earnestly that HORSHAM pays attention.

HORSHAM. No, my dear Charles, let us be practical. If his position with us is to be made impossible it is better that he shouldn't assume it.

BLACKBOROUGH. [Soft and friendly.] How far are you actually pledged to him?

HORSHAM looks up with the most ingenuous of smiles.

HORSHAM. That's always such a difficult sort of point to determine, isn't it? He thinks he is to join us. But I've not yet been commanded to form a cabinet. If neither you—nor Percival—nor perhaps others will work with him ... what am I to do? [He appeals to them generally to justify this attitude.]

BLACKBOROUGH. He no longer thinks he's to join us ... it's the question he left us to decide.

He leaves HORSHAM, whose perplexity is diminishing. FARRANT makes an effort.

FARRANT. But the scandal won't weaken his position with us now. There won't be any scandal ... there won't, Blackborough.

HORSHAM. There may be. Though, I take it we're all guiltless of having mentioned the matter.

BLACKBOROUGH. [Very detached.] I've only known of it since I came into this house ... but I shall not mention it.

FARRANT. Oh, I'm afraid my wife knows. [He adds hastily.] My fault ... my fault entirely.

BLACKBOROUGH. I tell you Rumour's electric.

HORSHAM has turned to FARRANT with a sweet smile and with the air of a man about to be relieved of all responsibility.

HORSHAM. What does she say?

FARRANT. [As one speaks of a nice woman.] She was horrified.

HORSHAM. Of course. [Once more he finds refuge and comfort on the hearthrug, to say, after a moment, with fine resignation.] I suppose I must let him go.

CANTELUPE. [On his feet again.] Cyril!

HORSHAM. Yes, Charles?

With this query he turns an accusing eye on CANTELUPE, who is silenced.

BLACKBOROUGH. Have you made up your mind to that?

FARRANT. [In great distress.] You're wrong, Horsham. [Then in greater.] That is ... I think you're wrong.

HORSHAM. I'd sooner not let him know to-night.

BLACKBOROUGH. But he asked you to.

HORSHAM. [All show of resistance gone.] Did he? Then I suppose I must. [He sighs deeply.]

BLACKBOROUGH. Then I'll get back to Aylesbury.

He picks up his motor-cap from the table and settles it on his head with immense aplomb.

HORSHAM. So late?

BLACKBOROUGH. Really one can get along quicker at night if one knows the road. You're in town, aren't you, Farrant? Shall I drop you at Grosvenor Square?

FARRANT. [Ungraciously.] Thank you.

BLACKBOROUGH. [With a conqueror's geniality.] I don't mind telling you now, Horsham, that ever since we met at Shapters I've been wondering how you'd escape from this association with Trebell. Thought he was being very clever when he crossed the House to us! It's needed a special providence. You'd never have got a cabinet together to include him.

HORSHAM. [With much intention.] No.

FARRANT. [Miserably.] Yes, I suppose that intrigue was a mistake from the beginning.

BLACKBOROUGH. Well, good-night. [As he turns to go he finds CANTELUPE upright, staring very sternly at him.] Good-night, Cantelupe.

CANTELUPE. From what motives have we thrown Trebell over?

BLACKBOROUGH. Never mind the motives if the move is the right one. [Then he nods at HORSHAM.] I shall be up again next week if you want me.

And he flourishes out of the room; a man who has done a good hour's work, FARRANT, who has been mooning depressedly around, now backs towards the door.

FARRANT. In one way, of course, Trebell won't care a damn. I mean, he knows as well as we do that office isn't worth having ... he has never been a place-hunter. On the other hand ... what with one thing and the other ... Blackborough is a sensible fellow. I suppose it can't be helped.

HORSHAM. Blackborough will tell you so. Good-night.

So FARRANT departs, leaving the two cousins together. CANTELUPE has not moved and now faces HORSHAM just as accusingly.

CANTELUPE. Cyril, this is tragic.

HORSHAM. [More to himself than in answer.] Yes ... most annoying.

CANTELUPE. Lucifer, son of the morning! Why is it always the highest who fall?

HORSHAM shies fastidiously at this touch of poetry.

HORSHAM. No, my dear Charles, let us above all things keep our mental balance. Trebell is a most capable fellow. I'd set my heart on having him with me ... he'll be most awkward to deal with in opposition. But we shall survive his loss and so would the country.

CANTELUPE. [Desperately.] Cyril, promise me there shall be no compromise over this measure.

HORSHAM. [Charmingly candid.] No ... no unnecessary compromise, I promise you.

CANTELUPE. [With a sigh.] If we had done what we have done to-night in the right spirit! Blackborough was almost vindictive.

HORSHAM. [Smiling without amusement.] Didn't you keep thinking ... I did ... of that affair of his with Mrs. Parkington ... years ago?

CANTELUPE. There was never any proof of it.

HORSHAM. No ... he bought off the husband.

CANTELUPE. [Uneasily.] His objections to Trebell were—political.

HORSHAM. Yours weren't.

CANTELUPE. [More uneasily still.] I withdrew mine.

HORSHAM. [With elderly reproof.] I don't think, Charles, you have the least conception of what a nicely balanced machine a cabinet is.

CANTELUPE. [Imploring comfort.] But should we have held together through Trebell's bill?

HORSHAM. [A little impatient.] Perhaps not. But once I had them all round a table ... Trebell is very keen on office for all his independent airs ... he and Percival could have argued the thing out. However, it's too late now.

CANTELUPE. Is it?

For a moment HORSHAM is tempted to indulge in the luxury of changing his mind; but he puts Satan behind him with a shake of the head.

HORSHAM. Well, you see ... Percival I can't do without. Now that Blackborough knows of his objections to the finance he'd go to him and take Chisholm and offer to back them up. I know he would ... he didn't take Farrant away with him for nothing. [Then he flashes out rather shrilly.] It's Trebell's own fault. He ought not to have committed himself definitely to any scheme until he was safely in office. I warned him about Percival ... I warned him not to be explicit. One cannot work with men who will make up their minds prematurely. No, I shall not change my mind. I shall write to him.

He goes firmly to his writing desk leaving CANTELUPE forlorn.

CANTELUPE. What about a messenger?

HORSHAM. Not at this time of night. I'll post it.

CANTELUPE. I'll post it as I go.

He seeks comfort again in the piano and this time starts to play, with one finger and some hesitation, the first bars of a Bach fugue, HORSHAM'S pen-nib is disappointing him and the letter is not easy to phrase.

HORSHAM. But I hate coming to immediate decisions. The administrative part of my brain always tires after half an hour. Does yours, Charles?

CANTELUPE. What do you think Trebell will do now?

HORSHAM. [A little grimly.] Punish us all he can.

On reaching the second voice in the fugue CANTELUPE'S virtuosity breaks down.

CANTELUPE. All that ability turned to destructiveness ... what a pity! That's the paradox of human activities....

Suddenly HORSHAM looks up and his face is lighted with a seraphic smile.

HORSHAM. Charles ... I wish we could do without Blackborough.

CANTELUPE. [Struck with the idea.] Well ... why not?

HORSHAM. Yes ... I must think about it. [They both get up, cheered considerably.] You won't forget this, will you?

CANTELUPE. [The letter in HORSHAM'S hand accusing him.] No ... no. I don't think I have been the cause of your dropping Trebell, have I?

HORSHAM, rid of the letter, is rid of responsibility and his charming equable self again. He comforts his cousin paternally.

HORSHAM. I don't think so. The split would have come when Blackborough checkmated my forming a cabinet. It would have pleased him to do that ... and he could have, over Trebell. But now that question's out of the way ... you won't get such a bad measure with Trebell in opposition. He'll frighten us into keeping it up to the mark, so to speak.

CANTELUPE. [A little comforted.] But I shall miss one or two of those ideas ...

HORSHAM. [So pleasantly sceptical.] Do you think they'd have outlasted the second reading? Dullness in the country one expects. Dullness in the House one can cope with. But do you know, I have never sat in a cabinet yet that didn't greet anything like a new idea in chilling silence.

CANTELUPE. Well, I should regret to have caused you trouble, Cyril.

HORSHAM. [His hand on the other's shoulder.] Oh ... we don't take politics so much to heart as that, I hope.

CANTELUPE. [With sweet gravity.] I take politics very much to heart. Yes, I know what you mean ... but that's the sort of remark that makes people call you cynical. [HORSHAM smiles as if at a compliment and starts with CANTELUPE towards the door. CANTELUPE, who would not hurt his feelings, changes the subject.] By the bye, I'm glad we met this evening! Do you hear Aunt Mary wants to sell the Burford Holbein? Can she?

HORSHAM. [Taking as keen, but no keener, an interest in this than in the difficulty he has just surmounted.] Yes, by the will she can, but she mustn't. Dear me, I thought I'd put a stop to that foolishness. Well now, we must take that matter up very seriously ...

They go out talking arm in arm.



THE FOURTH ACT

At TREBELL'S again; later, the same evening.

His room is in darkness but for the flicker the fire makes and the streaks of moonlight between the curtains. The door is open, though, and you see the light of the lamp on the stairs. You hear his footstep too. On his way he stops to draw back the the curtains of the passage-way window; the moonlight makes his face look very pale. Then he serves the curtains of his own window the same; flings it open, moreover, and stands looking out. Something below draws his attention. After leaning over the balcony with a short "Hullo" he goes quickly downstairs again. In a minute WEDGECROFT comes up. TREBELL follows, pausing by the door a moment to light up the room. WEDGECROFT is radiant.

TREBELL. [With a twist of his mouth.] Promised, has he?

WEDGECROFT. Suddenly broke out as we walked along, that he liked the look of you and that men must stand by one another nowadays against these women. Then he said good-night and walked away.

TREBELL. Back to Ireland and the thirteenth century.

WEDGECROFT. After to-morrow.

TREBELL. [Taking all the meaning of to-morrow.] Yes. Are you in for perjury, too?

WEDGECROFT. [His thankfulness checked a little.] No ... not exactly.

TREBELL walks away from him.

TREBELL. It's a pity the truth isn't to be told, I think. I suppose the verdict will be murder.

WEDGECROFT. They won't catch the man.

TREBELL. You don't mean ... me.

WEDGECROFT. No, no ... my dear fellow.

TREBELL. You might, you know. But nobody seems to see this thing as I see it. If I were on that jury I'd say murder too and accuse ... so many circumstances, Gilbert, that we should go home ... and look in the cupboards. What a lumber of opinions we inherit and keep!

WEDGECROFT. [Humouring him.] Ought we to burn the house down?

TREBELL. Rules and regulations for the preservation of rubbish are the laws of England ... and I was adding to their number.

WEDGECROFT. And so you shall ... to the applause of a grateful country.

TREBELL. [Studying his friend's kindly encouraging face.] Gilbert, it is not so much that you're an incorrigible optimist ... but why do you subdue your mind to flatter people into cheerfulness?

WEDGECROFT. I'm a doctor, my friend.

TREBELL. You're a part of our tendency to keep things alive by hook or by crook ... not a spark but must be carefully blown upon. The world's old and tired; it dreads extinction. I think I disapprove ... I think I've more faith.

WEDGECROFT. [Scolding him.] Nonsense ... you've the instinct to preserve your life as everyone else has ... and I'm here to show you how.

TREBELL. [Beyond the reach of his kindness.] I assure you that these two days while you've been fussing around O'Connell—bless your kind heart—I've been waiting events, indifferent enough to understand his indifference.

WEDGECROFT. Not indifferent.

TREBELL. Lifeless enough already, then. [Suddenly a thought strikes him.] D'you think it was Horsham and his little committee persuaded O'Connell?

WEDGECROFT. On the contrary.

TREBELL. So you need not have let them into the secret?

WEDGECROFT. No.

TREBELL. Think of that.

He almost laughs; but WEDGECROFT goes on quite innocently.

WEDGECROFT. Yes ... I'm sorry.

TREBELL. Upsetting their moral digestion for nothing.

WEDGECROFT. But when O'Connell wouldn't listen to us we had to rope in the important people.

TREBELL. With their united wisdom. [Then he breaks away again into great bitterness.] No ... what do they make of this woman's death? I saw them in that room, Gilbert, like men seen through the wrong end of a telescope. D'you think if the little affair with Nature ... her offence and mine against the conveniences of civilization ... had ended in my death too ... then they'd have stopped to wonder at the misuse and waste of the only force there is in the world ... come to think of it, there is no other ... than this desire for expression ... in words ... or through children. Would they have thought of that and stopped whispering about the scandal?

Through this WEDGECROFT has watched him very gravely.

WEDGECROFT. Trebell ... if the inquest to-morrow had put you out of action ...

TREBELL. Should I have grown a beard and travelled abroad and after ten years timidly tried to climb my way back into politics? When public opinion takes its heel from your face it keeps it for your finger-tips. After twenty years to be forgiven by your more broad-minded friends and tolerated as a dotard by a new generation....

WEDGECROFT. Nonsense. What age are you now ... forty-six ... forty-seven?

TREBELL. Well ... let's instance a good man. Gladstone had done his best work by sixty-five. Then he began to be popular. Think of his last years of oratory.

He has gone to his table and now very methodically starts to tidy his papers, WEDGECROFT still watching him.

WEDGECROFT. You'd have had to thank Heaven for a little that there were more lives than one to lead.

TREBELL. That's another of your faults, Gilbert ... it's a comfort just now to enumerate them. You're an anarchist ... a kingdom to yourself. You make little treaties with Truth and with Beauty, and what can disturb you? I'm a part of the machine I believe in. If my life as I've made it is to be cut short ... the rest of me shall walk out of the world and slam the door ... with the noise of a pistol shot.

WEDGECROFT. [Concealing some uneasiness.] Then I'm glad it's not to be cut short. You and your cabinet rank and your disestablishment bill!

TREBELL starts to enjoy his secret.

TREBELL. Yes ... our minds have been much relieved within the last half hour, haven't they?

WEDGECROFT. I scribbled Horsham a note in a messenger office and sent it as soon as O'Connell had left me.

TREBELL. He'd be glad to get that.

WEDGECROFT. He has been most kind about the whole thing.

TREBELL. Oh, he means well.

WEDGECROFT. [Following up his fancied advantage.] But, my friend ... suicide whilst of unsound mind would never have done.... The hackneyed verdict hits the truth, you know.

TREBELL. You think so?

WEDGECROFT. I don't say there aren't excuses enough in this miserable world, but fundamentally ... no sane person will destroy life.

TREBELL. [His thoughts shifting their plane.] Was she so very mad? I'm not thinking of her own death.

WEDGECROFT. Don't brood, Trebell. Your mind isn't healthy yet about her and—

TREBELL. And my child.

Even WEDGECROFT'S kindness is at fault before the solemnity of this.

WEDGECROFT. Is that how you're thinking of it?

TREBELL. How else? It's very inexplicable ... this sense of fatherhood. [The eyes of his mind travel down—what vista of possibilities. Then he shakes himself free.] Let's drop the subject. To finish the list of shortcomings, you're a bit of an artist too ... therefore I don't think you'll understand.

WEDGECROFT. [Successfully decoyed into argument.] Surely an artist is a man who understands.

TREBELL. Everything about life, but not life itself. That's where art fails a man.

WEDGECROFT. That's where everything but living fails a man. [Drifting into introspection himself.] Yes, it's true. I can talk cleverly and I've written a book ... but I'm barren. [Then the healthy mind re-asserts itself.] No, it's not true. Our thoughts are children ... and marry and intermarry. And we're peopling the world ... not badly.

TREBELL. Well ... either life is too little a thing to matter or it's so big that such specks of it as we may be are of no account. These are two points of view. And then one has to consider if death can't be sometimes the last use made of life.

There is a tone of menace in this which recalls WEDGECROFT to the present trouble.

WEDGECROFT. I doubt the virtue of sacrifice ... or the use of it.

TREBELL. How else could I tell Horsham that my work matters? Does he think so now?... not he.

WEDGECROFT. You mean if they'd had to throw you over?

Once again TREBELL looks up with that secretive smile.

TREBELL. Yes ... if they'd had to.

WEDGECROFT. [Unreasonably nervous, so he thinks.] My dear fellow, Horsham would have thought it was the shame and disgrace if you'd shot yourself after the inquest. That's the proper sentimental thing for you so-called strong men to do on like occasions. Why, if your name were to come out to-morrow, your best meaning friends would be sending you pistols by post, requesting you to use them like a gentleman. Horsham would grieve over ten dinner-tables in succession and then return to his philosophy. One really mustn't waste a life trying to shock polite politicians. There'd even be a suspicion of swagger in it.

TREBELL. Quite so ... the bomb that's thrown at their feet must be something otherwise worthless.

FRANCES comes in quickly, evidently in search of her brother. Though she has not been crying, her eyes are wide with grief.

FRANCES. Oh, Henry ... I'm so glad you're still up. [She notices WEDGECROFT.] How d'you do, Doctor?

TREBELL. [Doubling his mask of indifference.] Meistersinger's over early.

FRANCES. Is it?

TREBELL. Not much past twelve yet.

FRANCES. [The little gibe lost on her.] It was Tristan to-night. I'm quite upset. I heard just as I was coming away ... Amy O'Connell's dead. [Both men hold their breath. TREBELL is the first to find control of his and give the cue.]

TREBELL. Yes ... Wedgecroft has just told me.

FRANCES. She was only taken ill last week ... it's so extraordinary. [She remembers the doctor.] Oh ... have you been attending her?

WEDGECROFT. Yes.

FRANCES. I hear there's to be an inquest.

WEDGECROFT. Yes.

FRANCES. But what has been the matter?

TREBELL. [Sharply forestalling any answer.] You'll know to-morrow.

FRANCES. [The little snub almost bewildering her.] Anything private? I mean....

TREBELL. No ... I'll tell you. Don't make Gilbert repeat a story twice.... He's tired with a good day's work.

WEDGECROFT. Yes ... I'll be getting away.

FRANCES never heeds this flash of a further meaning between the two men.

FRANCES. And I meant to have gone to see her to-day. Was the end very sudden? Did her husband arrive in time?

WEDGECROFT. Yes.

FRANCES. They didn't get on ... he'll be frightfully upset.

TREBELL resists a hideous temptation to laugh.

WEDGECROFT. Good night, Trebell.

TREBELL. Good night, Gilbert. Many thanks.

There is enough of a caress in TREBELL'S tone to turn FRANCES towards their friend, a little remorseful for treating him so casually, now as always.

FRANCES. He's always thanking you. You're always doing things for him.

WEDGECROFT. Good night. [Seeing the tears in her eyes.] Oh, don't grieve.

FRANCES. One shouldn't be sorry when people die, I know. But she liked me more than I liked her ... [This time TREBELL does laugh, silently.] ... so I somehow feel in her debt and unable to pay now.

TREBELL. [An edge on his voice.] Yes ... people keep on dying at all sorts of ages, in all sorts of ways. But we seem never to get used to it ... narrow-minded as we are.

WEDGECROFT. Don't you talk nonsense.

TREBELL. [One note sharper yet.] One should occasionally test one's sanity by doing so. If we lived in the logical world we like to believe in, I could also prove that black was white. As it is ... there are more ways of killing a cat than hanging it.

WEDGECROFT. Had I better give you a sleeping draught?

FRANCES. Are you doctoring him for once? Henry, have you at last managed to overwork yourself?

TREBELL. No ... I started the evening by a charming little dinner at the Van Meyer's ... sat next to Miss Grace Cutler, who is writing a vie intime of Louis Quinze and engaged me with anecdotes of the same.

FRANCES. A champion of her sex, whom I do not like.

WEDGECROFT. She's writing such a book to prove that women are equal to anything.

He goes towards the door and FRANCES goes with him. TREBELL never turns his head.

TREBELL. I shall not come and open the door for you ... but mind you shut it.