60 Plays: The George Bernard Shaw Edition (Illustrated). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
As if there were no other interests — no other subjects of conversation — as if women were capable of nothing better!
GLORIA (interested). Ah, now you are beginning to talk humanly and sensibly, Mr. Valentine.
VALENTINE (with a gleam in his eye at the success of his hunter’s guile). Of course! — two intelligent people like us. Isn’t it pleasant, in this stupid, convention-ridden world, to meet with someone on the same plane — someone with an unprejudiced, enlightened mind?
GLORIA (earnestly). I hope to meet many such people in England.
VALENTINE (dubiously). Hm! There are a good many people here — nearly forty millions. They’re not all consumptive members of the highly educated classes like the people in Madeira.
GLORIA (now full of her subject). Oh, everybody is stupid and prejudiced in Madeira — weak, sentimental creatures! I hate weakness; and I hate sentiment.
VALENTINE. That’s what makes you so inspiring.
GLORIA (with a slight laugh). Am I inspiring?
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?
GLORIA. That is ridiculous, and rather personal.
VALENTINE. Of course it’s ridiculous. Well, that’s what my eyes tell me. (Gloria makes a movement of contemptuous protest.) No: I’m not flattering. I tell you I don’t believe it. (She is ashamed to find that this does not quite please her either.) Do you think that if you were to turn away in disgust from my weakness, I should sit down here and cry like a child?
GLORIA (beginning to find that she must speak shortly and pointedly to keep her voice steady). Why should you, pray?
VALENTINE (with a stir of feeling beginning to agitate his voice). Of course not: I’m not such an idiot. And yet my heart tells me I should — my fool of a heart. But I’ll argue with my heart and bring it to reason. If I loved you a thousand times, I’ll force myself to look the truth steadily in the face. After all, it’s easy to be sensible: the facts are the facts. What’s this place? it’s not heaven: it’s the Marine Hotel. What’s the time? it’s not eternity: it’s about half past one in the afternoon. What am I? a dentist — a five shilling dentist!
GLORIA. And I am a feminine prig.
VALENTINE. (passionately). No, no: I can’t face that: I must have one illusion left — the illusion about you. I love you. (He turns towards her as if the impulse to touch her were ungovernable: she rises and stands on her guard wrathfully. He springs up impatiently and retreats a step.) Oh, what a fool I am! — an idiot! You don’t understand: I might as well talk to the stones on the beach. (He turns away, discouraged.)
GLORIA (reassured by his withdrawal, and a little remorseful). I am sorry. I do not mean to be unsympathetic, Mr. Valentine; but what can I say?
VALENTINE (returning to her with all his recklessness of manner replaced by an engaging and chivalrous respect). You can say nothing, Miss Clandon. I beg your pardon: it was my own fault, or rather my own bad luck. You see, it all depended on your naturally liking me. (She is about to speak: he stops her deprecatingly.) Oh, I know you mustn’t tell me whether you like me or not; but —
GLORIA (her principles up in arms at once). Must not! Why not? I am a free woman: why should I not tell you?
VALENTINE