第20章

VALENTINE Yes.Strength's infectious.

GLORIA.Weakness is, I know.

VALENTINE (with conviction).Y o u're strong.Do you know that you changed the world for me this morning? I was in the dumps, thinking of my unpaid rent, frightened about the future.When you came in, I was dazzled.(Her brow clouds a little.He goes on quickly.) That was silly, of course; but really and truly something happened to me.

Explain it how you will, my blood got--- (he hesitates, trying to think of a sufficiently unimpassioned word) ---oxygenated: my muscles braced;my mind cleared; my courage rose.That's odd, isn't it? considering that I am not at all a sentimental man.

GLORIA (uneasily, rising).Let us go back to the beach.

VALENTINE (darkly---looking up at her).What! you feel it, too?

GLORIA.Feel what?

VALENTINE.Dread.

GLORIA.Dread!

VALENTINE.As if something were going to happen.It came over me suddenly just before you proposed that we should run away to the others.

GLORIA (amazed).That's strange---very strange! I had the same presentiment.

VALENTINE.How extraordinary! (Rising.) Well: shall we run away?

GLORIA.Run away! Oh, no: that would be childish.(She sits down again.He resumes his seat beside her, and watches her with a gravely sympathetic air.She is thoughtful and a little troubled as she adds)I wonder what is the scientific explanation of those fancies that cross us occasionally!

VALENTINE.Ah, I wonder! It's a curiously helpless sensation: isn't it?

GLORIA (rebelling against the word).Helpless?

VALENTINE.Yes.As if Nature, after allowing us to belong to ourselves and do what we judged right and reasonable for all these years, were suddenly lifting her great hand to take us---her two little children---by the scruff's of our little necks, and use us, in spite of ourselves, for her own purposes, in her own way.

GLORIA.Isn't that rather fanciful?

VALENTINE (with a new and startling transition to a tone of utter recklessness).I don't know.I don't care.(Bursting out reproachfully.) Oh, Miss Clandon, Miss Clandon: how could you?

GLORIA.What have I done?

VALENTINE.Thrown this enchantment on me.I'm honestly trying to be sensible---scientific---everything that you wish me to be.But---but---oh, don't you see what you have set to work in my imagination?

GLORIA (with indignant, scornful sternness).I hope you are not going to be so foolish---so vulgar---as to say love.

VALENTINE (with ironical haste to disclaim such a weakness).No, no, no.Not love: we know better than that.Let's call it chemistry.You can't deny that there is such a thing as chemical action, chemical affinity, chemical combination---the most irresistible of all natural forces.Well, you're attracting me irresistibly---chemically.

GLORIA (contemptuously).Nonsense!

VALENTINE.Of course it's nonsense, you stupid girl.(Gloria recoils in outraged surprise.) Yes, stupid girl: t h a t's a scientific fact, anyhow.You're a prig---a feminine prig: that's what you are.(Rising.) Now I suppose you've done with me for ever.(He goes to the iron table and takes up his hat.)GLORIA (with elaborate calm, sitting up like a High-school-mistress posing to be photographed).That shows how very little you understand my real character.I am not in the least offended.(He pauses and puts his hat down again.) I am always willing to be told of my own defects, Mr.Valentine, by my friends, even when they are as absurdly mistaken about me as you are.I have many faults---very serious faults---of character and temper; but if there is one thing that I am not, it is what you call a prig.(She closes her lips trimly and looks steadily and challengingly at him as she sits more collectedly than ever.)VALENTINE (returning to the end of the garden seat to confront her more emphatically).Oh, yes, you are.My reason tells me so: my knowledge tells me so: my experience tells me so.

GLORIA.Excuse my reminding you that your reason and your knowledge and your experience are not infallible.At least I hope not.

VALENTINE.I must believe them.Unless you wish me to believe my eyes, my heart, my instincts, my imagination, which are all telling me the most monstrous lies about you.

GLORIA (the collectedness beginning to relax).Lies!

VALENTINE (obstinately).Yes, lies.(He sits down again beside her.) Do you expect me to believe that you are the most beautiful woman in the world?