Читать книгу: «Five O'Clock Tea: Farce», страница 2

Mrs. Somers: "You promised not to recur to that subject without some hint from me. You have broken your promise."

Campbell: "Well, you wouldn't give me any hint."

Mrs. Somers: "How can I believe you care for me if you are false in this?"

Campbell: "It seems to me that my falsehood is another proof of my affection."

Mrs. Somers: "Very well, then; you can wait till I know my mind."

Campbell: "I'd rather know your heart. But I'll wait." After a pause: "Why do you carry a fan on a day like this? I ask, to make general conversation."

Mrs. Somers, spreading the fan in her lap, and looking at it curiously: "I don't know." After a moment: "Oh yes; for the same reason that I shall have ice-cream after dinner to-day."

Campbell: "That's no reason at all." After a moment: "Are you going to have ice-cream to-day after dinner?"

Mrs. Somers: "I might. If I had company."

Campbell: "Oh, I couldn't stay after hinting. I'm too proud for that." He pulls his chair nearer and joins her in examining the fan in her lap. "What is so very strange about your fan?"

Mrs. Somers: "Nothing. I was just seeing how a fan looked that was the subject of gratuitous criticism."

Campbell: "I didn't criticise the fan." He regards it studiously.

Mrs. Somers: "Oh! Not the fan?"

Campbell: "No; I think it's extremely pretty. I like big fans."

Mrs. Somers: "So good of you! It's Spanish. That's why it's so large."

Campbell: "It's hand-painted, too."

Mrs. Somers, leaning back, and leaving him to the inspection of the fan: "You're a connoisseur, Mr. Campbell."

Campbell: "Oh, I can tell hand-painting from machine-painting when I see it. 'Tisn't so good."

Mrs. Somers: "Thank you."

Campbell: "Not at all. Now, that fellow – cavalier, I suppose, in Spain – making love in that attitude, you can see at a glance that he's hand-painted. No machine-painted cavalier would do it in that way. And look at the lady's hand. Who ever saw a hand of that size before?"

Mrs. Somers, unclasping the hands which she had folded at her waist, and putting one of them out to take up the fan: "You said you were not criticising the fan."

Campbell, quickly seizing the hand, with the fan in it: "Ah, I'm wrong! Here's another one no bigger. Let me see which is the largest."

Mrs. Somers, struggling not very violently to free her hand: "Mr. Campbell!"

Campbell: "Don't take it away! You must listen to me now, Amy."

Mrs. Somers, rising abruptly, and dropping her fan as she comes forward to meet an elderly gentleman arriving from the landing: "Mr. Bemis! How very heroic of you to come such a day! Isn't it too bad?"

II
MR. BEMIS; MRS. SOMERS; MR. WILLIS CAMPBELL

Bemis: "Not if it makes me specially welcome, Mrs. Somers." Discovering Campbell: "Oh, Mr. Campbell!"

Campbell, striving for his self-possession as they shake hands: "Yes, another hero, Mr. Bemis. Mrs. Somers is going to brevet everybody who comes to-day. She didn't say heroes to me, but – "

Mrs. Somers: "You shall have your tea at once, Mr. Bemis." She rings. "I was making Mr. Campbell wait for his. You don't order up the teapot for one hero."

Bemis: "Ha, ha, ha! No, indeed! But I'm very glad you do for two. The fact is" – rubbing his hands – "I'm half frozen."

Mrs. Somers: "Is it so very cold?" To Campbell, who presents her fan with a bow: "Oh, thank you." To Mr. Bemis: "Mr. Campbell has just been objecting to my fan. He doesn't like its being hand-painted, as he calls it."

Bemis: "That reminds me of a California gentleman whom I found looking at an Andrea del Sarto in the Pitti Palace at Florence one day – by-the-way, you've been a Californian too, Mr. Campbell; but you won't mind. He seemed to be puzzled over it, and then he said to me – I was standing near him – 'Hand-painted, I presume?'"

Mrs. Somers: "Ah! ha, ha, ha! How very good!" To the maid, who appears: "The tea, Lizzie."

Campbell: "You don't think he was joking?"

Bemis, with misgiving: "Why, no, it never occurred to me that he was."

Campbell: "You can't always tell when a Californian's joking."

Mrs. Somers, with insinuation: "Can't you? Not even adoptive ones?"

Campbell: "Adoptive ones never joke."

Mrs. Somers: "Not even about hand-painted fans? What an interesting fact!" She sits down on the sofa behind the little table on which the maid arranges the tea, and pours out a cup. Then, with her eyes on Mr. Bemis: "Cream and sugar both? Yes?" Holding a cube of sugar in the tongs: "How many?"

Bemis: "One, please."

Mrs. Somers, handing it to him: "I'm so glad you take your tea au naturel, as I call it."

Campbell: "What do you call it when they don't take it with cream and sugar?"

Mrs. Somers: "Au unnaturel. There's only one thing worse: taking it with a slice of lemon in it. You might as well draw it from a bothersome samovar at once, and be done with it."

Campbell: "The samovar is picturesque."

Mrs. Somers: "It is insincere. Like Californians. Natives."

Campbell: "Well, I can think of something much worse than tea with lemon in it."

Mrs. Somers: "What?"

Campbell: "No tea at all."

Mrs. Somers, recollecting herself: "Oh, poor Mr. Campbell! Two lumps?"

Campbell: "One, thank you. Your pity is so sweet!"

Mrs. Somers: "You ought to have thought of the milk of human kindness, and spared my cream-jug too."

Campbell: "You didn't pour out your compassion soon enough."

Bemis, who has been sipping his tea in silent admiration: "Are you often able to keep it up in that way? I was fancying myself at the theatre."

Mrs. Somers: "Oh, don't encore us! Mr. Campbell would keep saying his things over indefinitely."

Campbell, presenting his cup: "Another lump. It's turned bitter. Two!"

Bemis: "Ha, ha, ha! Very good – very good indeed!"

Campbell: "Thank you kindly, Mr. Bemis."

Mrs. Somers, greeting the new arrivals, and leaning forward to shake hands with them as they come up, without rising: "Mrs. Roberts! How very good of you! And Mr. Roberts!"