60 Plays: The George Bernard Shaw Edition (Illustrated). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
love anybody else. When one is young, one marries out of mere curiosity, just to see what it’s like.
GRACE. Well, since you ask me, I never was in love with Tranfield, though I only found that out when I fell in love with you. But I used to like him for being in love with me. It brought out all the good in him so much that I have wanted to be in love with some one ever since. I hope, now that I am in love with you, you will like me for it just as I liked Tranfield.
CHARTERIS. My dear, it is because I like you that I want to marry you. I could love anybody — any pretty woman, that is.
GRACE. Do you really mean that, Leonard?
CHARTERIS. Of course. Why not?
GRACE (reflecting). Never mind why. Now tell me, is this your first love affair?
CHARTERIS (amazed at the simplicity of the question). No, bless my soul. No — nor my second, nor my third.
GRACE. But I mean your first serious one.
CHARTERIS (with a certain hesitation). Yes. (There is a pause. She is not convinced. He adds, with a very perceptible load on his conscience.) It is the first in which I have been serious.
GRACE (searchingly). I see. The other parties were always serious.
CHARTERIS. No, not always — heaven forbid!
GRACE. How often?
CHARTERIS. Well, once.
GRACE. Julia Craven?
CHARTERIS (recoiling). Who told you that? (She shakes her head mysteriously, and he turns away from her moodily and adds) You had much better not have asked.
GRACE (gently). I’m sorry, dear. (She puts out her hand and pulls softly at him to bring him near her again.)
CHARTERIS (yielding mechanically to the pull, and allowing her hand to rest on his arm, but sitting squarely without the least attempt to return the caress). Do I feel harder to the touch than I did five minutes ago?
GRACE. What nonsense!
CHARTERIS. I feel as if my body had turned into the toughest of hickory. That is what comes of reminding me of Julia Craven. (Brooding, with his chin on his right hand and his elbow on his knee.) I have sat alone with her just as I am sitting with you —
GRACE (shrinking from him). Just!
CHARTERIS (sitting upright and facing her steadily). Just exactly. She has put her hands in mine, and laid her cheek against mine, and listened to me saying all sorts of silly things. (Grace, chilled to the soul, rises from the sofa and sits down on the piano stool, with her back to the keyboard.) Ah, you don’t want to hear any more of the story. So much the better.
GRACE (deeply hurt, but controlling herself). When did you break it off?
CHARTERIS (guiltily). Break it off?
GRACE (firmly). Yes, break it off.
CHARTERIS. Well, let me see. When did I fall in love with you?
GRACE. Did you break it off then?
CHARTERIS (mischievously, making it plainer and plainer that it has not been broken off). It was clear then, of course, that it must be broken off.
GRACE. And did you break it off?
CHARTERIS. Oh, yes: I broke it off,
GRACE. But did she break it off?
CHARTERIS (rising). As a favour to me, dearest, change the subject. Come away from the piano: I want you to sit here with me. (Takes a step towards her.)
GRACE. No. I also have grown hard to the touch — much harder than hickory for the present. Did she break it off?
CHARTERIS. My dear, be reasonable. It was fully explained to her that it was to be broken off.
GRACE. Did she accept the explanation?
CHARTERIS. She did what a woman like Julia always does. When I explained personally, she said it was not not my better self that was speaking, and that she knew I still really loved her. When I wrote it to her with brutal explicitness, she read the letter carefully and then sent it back to me with a note to say that she had not had the courage to open it, and that I ought to be ashamed of having written it. (Comes beside Grace, and puts his left hand caressingly round her neck.) You see, dearie, she won’t look the situation in the face.
GRACE. (shaking off his hand and turning a little away on the stool). I am afraid, from the light way in which you speak of it, you did not sound the right chord.
CHARTERIS. My dear, when you are doing what a woman calls breaking her heart, you may sound the very prettiest chords you can find on the piano; but to her ears it is just like this — (Sits down on the bass end of the keyboard. Grace puts her fingers in her ears. He rises and moves away from the piano, saying) No, my dear: I’ve been kind; I’ve been frank; I’ve been everything that a goodnatured man could be: she only takes it as the making up of a lover’s quarrel. (Grace winces.) Frankness and kindness: one is as the other — especially frankness. I’ve tried both. (He crosses to the fireplace, and stands facing the fire, looking at the ornaments on the mantelpiece and warming his hands.)
GRACE (Her voice a little strained). What are you going to try now?
CHARTERIS (on the hearthrug, turning to face her). Action, my dear! Marriage!! In that she must believe. She won’t be convinced by anything short of it, because, you see, I have had some tremendous philanderings before and have gone back to her after them.
GRACE. And so that is why you want to marry me?
CHARTERIS. I cannot deny it, my love. Yes: it is your mission to rescue me from Julia.
GRACE (rising). Then, if you please, I decline to be made use of for any such purpose. I will not steal you from another woman. (She begins to walk up and down the room with ominous disquiet.)
CHARTERIS. Steal me! (Comes towards her.) Grace: I have a question to put to you as an advanced woman. Mind! as an advanced woman. Does Julia belong to me? Am I her owner — her master?
GRACE. Certainly not. No woman is the property of a man. A woman belongs to herself and to nobody else.
CHARTERIS. Quite right. Ibsen for ever! That’s exactly my opinion. Now tell me, do I belong to Julia; or have I a right to belong to myself?
GRACE (puzzled). Of course you have; but —
CHARTERIS (interrupting her triumphantly). Then how can you steal me from Julia if I don’t belong to her? (Catching her by the shoulders and holding her out at arm’s length in front of him.) Eh, little philosopher? No, my dear: if Ibsen sauce is good for the goose, it’s good for the gander as well. Besides (coaxing her) it was nothing but a philander with Julia — nothing else in the world, I assure you.
GRACE (breaking away from him). So much the worse! I hate your philanderings: they make me ashamed of you and of myself. (Goes to the sofa and sits in the right hand corner of it, leaning gloomily on her elbow with her face averted.)
CHARTERIS. Grace: you utterly misunderstand the origin of my philanderings. (Sits down beside her.) Listen to me: am I a particularly handsome man?
GRACE (turning to him as if astonished at his conceit). No!
CHARTERIS (triumphantly). You admit it. Am I a well dressed man?
GRACE. Not particularly.
CHARTERIS. Of course not. Have I a romantic mysterious charm about me? — do I look as if a secret sorrow preyed on me? — am I gallant to women?
GRACE. Not in the least.
CHARTERIS. Certainly not. No one can accuse me of it. Then whose fault is it that half the women I speak to fall in love with me? Not mine: I hate it: it bores me to distraction. At first it flattered me — delighted me — that was how Julia got me, because she was the first woman who had the pluck to make me a declaration. But I soon had enough of it; and at no time have I taken the initiative