The Man from Home. Booth Tarkington
DE CHAMPIGNY
[gravely, drawing back from the table.]
I should like much to know his name.
HAWCASTLE
[smiling, and eating composedly]
You may be sure it isn't Ivanoff.
MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY
[not changing her attitude]
How can one know it is not
[pauses and speaks the name very gravely]
Ivanoff?
HAWCASTLE
[laughing]
He wouldn't be called an infamous brigand.
MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY
[very gravely]
That, my friend, may be only Italian journalism.
HAWCASTLE
Pooh! This means a highwayman—
[finishes [pg 024] his coffee coolly]
—not—not an embezzler, Hélène.
MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY
[taking a deep breath and sinking back in her chair with a fixed gaze]
I am glad to believe it, but I care for no more to eat. I have some foolish feeling of unsafety. It is now two nights that I dream of him—of Ivanoff—bad dreams for us both, my friend.
HAWCASTLE
[laughing]
What rot! It takes more than a dream to bring a man back from Siberia.
MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY
Then I pray there has been no more than dreams.
[Music of mandolins and guitars heard off to the right with song—"The Fisherman's Song."]
[Enter ETHEL gayly and quickly from the grove, her face radiant. She is a very pretty American girl of twenty. She wears a light-brown linen skirted coat, fitting closely, and a country riding-skirt of the same material and color, with boots, a shirt-waist, collar and tie, and three-cornered hat. She carries a riding-crop. She is followed by three musicians (two mandolins and [pg 025] a guitar), who laughingly continue the song. They are shabby fellows, two of them barefooted, wearing shabby, patched velveteen trousers and blue flannel shirts open at the throat, with big black hats, old and shapeless. One makes a low and sweeping bow before ETHEL; she takes money from her glove and gives it to him, the other two not discontinuing the song; the three immediately 'bout face and go out gleefully, capering and still singing.]
HAWCASTLE
[who has risen]
The divine Miss Granger-Simpson!
ETHEL
[with a pronounced "English accent"]
The divinely happy Miss Granger-Simpson!
MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY
[rising, running to her, and kissing her]
Oh, I hope you mean—
HAWCASTLE
[with some excitement in his voice]
You mean you have made my son divinely happy?
[ETHEL, as he speaks, extricates herself laughingly from MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY.]
ETHEL
Is not every one happy in Sorrento—
[with a wave of her riding-crop]
—even your son?[pg 026]
[Exit laughingly and hurriedly into the hotel.]
[MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY goes to stool behind table and gets her parasol, as HAWCASTLE resumes his seat.]
MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY
Ah! that is good. Listen!
[A piano sounds from the room ETHEL has just entered, breaking loudly and gayly into Chaminade's "Elevation." ETHEL'S voice is heard for a moment, also, singing.]
She has flown to her piano. It looks well, indeed—our little enterprise.
HAWCASTLE
[grimly]
It's time. If Almeric had been anything but a clumsy oof he'd have made her settle it weeks ago!
MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY
[quickly]
You are invidious, mon ami! My affair is not settled—am I a clumsy oof?
HAWCASTLE
[leaning toward her across the table and speaking sharply and earnestly]
No, Hélène. Your little American, brother Horace, is so in love with you, if you asked him suddenly, "Is this day or night?" he would answer, "It's Hélène." But [pg 027] he's too shy to speak. You're a woman—you can't press matters; but Almeric's a man—he can. He can urge an immediate marriage, which means an immediate settlement, and a direct one.
MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY
[seriously, quickly]
It will not be small, that settlement?
[He shakes his head grimly, leaning back to look at her. She continues eagerly.]
You have decide' what sum?
[He nods decidedly.]
What?
HAWCASTLE
[sharply, with determination, yet quietly]
A hundred and fifty thousand pounds!
MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY
[excited and breathless]
My friend! Will she?
[Turns and stares toward ETHEL'S room, where the piano is still heard softly playing.]
HAWCASTLE
Not for Almeric, but to be the future Countess of Hawcastle. My sister-in-law hasn't been her chaperone for a year for nothing. And, by Jove, she hasn't done it for nothing, either!
[He laughs grimly, moving back from the table.]
But she's deserved all I shall allow her.[pg 028]
MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY
[coldly]
Why?
HAWCASTLE
[rising]
It was she who found these people. Indeed, we might say that both you and I owe her something also.
[Comes around behind table to MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY.]
Even a less captious respectability than Lady Creech's might have looked askance at the long friendship
[kisses her hand]
which has existed between us. Yet she has always countenanced us, though she must have guessed—a great many things. And she will help us to urge an immediate marriage. You know as well as I do that unless it is immediate, there'll be the devil to pay. Don't miss that essential: something must be done at once. We're at the breaking-point—if you like the words—a most damnable insolvency.
[Enter ALMERIC from the grove. He is a fair, fresh-colored Englishman of twenty-five, handsome in a rather vacuous way. He wears white duck riding-breeches, light-tan leather riding-gaiters and shoes, a riding-coat of white duck, a waistcoat light tan in shade, and a high riding-stock, the collar of which is white, the "puffed" tie pink; a Panama hat [pg 029] with a fold of light tan and white silk round the crown. Carries a riding-crop.]
ALMERIC
[as he enters]
Hello, Governor!
[His voice