The Collected Plays of George Bernard Shaw - 60 Titles in One Edition (Illustrated Edition). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
room, and let’s see what you can do after teetotalling for a year.
CRAVEN (playfully). Vulgar little girl! (He pinches her ear.) Shall we come, Jo! You’ll be the better for a pick-me-up after all this emotion.
CUTHBERTSON. I’m not ashamed of it, Dan. It has done me good. (He goes up to the table and shakes his fist at the bust over the mantelpiece.) It would do you good too if you had eyes and ears to take it in.
CRAVEN (astonished). Who?
SYLVIA. Why, good old Henrik, of course.
CRAVEN (puzzled). Henrik?
CUTHBERTSON (impatiently). Ibsen, man: Ibsen. (He goes out by the staircase door followed by Sylvia, who kisses her hand to the bust as she passes. Craven stares blankly after her, and then up at the bust. Giving the problem up as insoluble, he shakes his head and follows them. Near the door he checks himself and comes back.)
CRAVEN (softly). By the way, Paramore? —
PARAMORE (rousing himself with an effort). Yes?
CRAVEN. You weren’t in earnest that time about my heart, were you?
PARAMORE. Oh, nothing, nothing. There’s a slight murmur — mitral valves a little worn, perhaps; but they’ll last your time if you’re careful. Don’t smoke too much.
CRAVEN. What! More privations! Now really, Paramore, really —
PARAMORE (rising distractedly). Excuse me: I can’t pursue the subject. I — I —
JULIA. Don’t worry him now, Daddy.
CRAVEN. Well, well: I won’t. (He comes to Paramore, who is pacing restlessly up and down the middle of the room.) Come, Paramore, I’m not selfish, believe me: I can feel for your disappointment. But you must face it like a man. And after all, now really, doesn’t this shew that there’s a lot of rot about modern science? Between ourselves, you know, it’s horribly cruel: you must admit that it’s a deuced nasty thing to go ripping up and crucifying camels and monkeys. It must blunt all the finer feelings sooner or later.
PARAMORE (turning on him). How many camels and horses and men were ripped up in that Soudan campaign where you won your Victoria Cross, Colonel Craven?
CRAVEN (firing up). That was fair fighting — a very different thing, Paramore.
PARAMORE. Yes, Martinis and machine guns against naked spearmen.
CRAVEN (hotly). I took my chance with the rest, Dr. Paramore. I risked my own life: don’t forget that.
PARAMORE (with equal spirit). And I have risked mine, as all doctors do, oftener than any soldier.
CRAVEN. That’s true. I didn’t think of that. I beg your pardon, Paramore: I’ll never say another word against your profession. But I hope you’ll let me stick to the good oldfashioned shaking up treatment for my liver — a clinking run across country with the hounds.
PARAMORE (with bitter irony). Isn’t that rather cruel — a pack of dogs ripping up a fox?
JULIA (coming coaxingly between them). Oh, please don’t begin arguing again. Do go to the smoking room, Daddy: Mr. Cuthbertson will wonder what has become of you.
CRAVEN. Very well, very well: I’ll go. But you’re really not reasonable to-day, Paramore, to talk that way of fair sport —
JULIA. Sh — sh (coaxing him toward the door).
CRAVEN. Well, well, I’m off. (He goes goodhumoredly, pushed out by Julia.)
JULIA (turning at the door with her utmost witchery of manner). Don’t look so disappointed, Dr. Paramore. Cheer up. You’ve been most kind to us; and you’ve done papa a lot of good.
PARAMORE (delighted, rushing over to her). How beautiful it is of you to say that to me, Miss Craven!
JULIA. I hate to see any one unhappy. I can’t bear unhappiness. (She runs out, casting a Parthian glance at him as she flies. Paramore stands enraptured, gazing after her through the glass door. Whilst he is thus absorbed Charteris comes in from the dining room and touches him on the arm.)
PARAMORE (starting). Eh! What’s the matter?
CHARTERIS (significantly). Charming woman, isn’t she, Paramore? (Looking admiringly at him.) How have you managed to fascinate her?
PARAMORE. I! Do you really mean — (He looks at him; then recovers himself and adds coldly.) Excuse me: this is a subject I do not care to jest about. (He walks away from Charteris down the side of the room, and sits down in an easy chair reading his Journal to intimate that he does not wish to pursue the conversation.)
CHARTERIS (ignoring the hint and coolly taking a chair beside him). Why don’t you get married, Paramore? You know it’s a scandalous thing for a man in your profession to be single.
PARAMORE (shortly, still pretending to read). That’s my own business, not yours.
CHARTERIS. Not at all: it’s preeminently a social question. You’re going to get married, aren’t you?
PARAMORE. Not that I am aware of.
CHARTERIS (alarmed). No! Don’t say that. Why?
PARAMORE (rising angrily and rapping one of the SILENCE placards). Allow me to call your attention to that. (He crosses to the easy chair near the revolving bookstand, and flings himself into it with determined hostility.)
CHARTERIS (following him, too deeply concerned to mind the rebuff). Paramore: you alarm me more than I can say. You’ve been and muffed this business somehow. I know perfectly well what you’ve been up to; and I fully expected to find you a joyful accepted suitor.
PARAMORE (angrily). Yes, you have been watching me because you admire Miss Craven yourself. Well, you may go in and win now. You will be pleased to hear that I am a ruined man.
CHARTERIS. You! Ruined! How? The turf?
PARAMORE (contemptuously). The turf!! Certainly not.
CHARTERIS. Paramore: if the loan of all I possess will help you over this difficulty, you’re welcome to it.
PARAMORE (rising in surprise). Charteris! I — (suspiciously.) Are you joking?
CHARTERIS. Why on earth do you always suspect me of joking? I never was more serious in my life.
PARAMORE (shamed by Charteris’s generosity). Then I beg your pardon. I thought the news would please you.
CHARTERIS (deprecating this injustice to his good feeling). My dear fellow — !
PARAMORE. I see I was wrong. I am really very sorry. (They shake hands.) And now you may as well learn the truth. I had rather you heard it from me than from the gossip of the club. My liver discovery has been — er — er — (he cannot bring himself to say it).
CHARTERIS (helping him out). Confirmed? (Sadly.) I see: the poor Colonel’s doomed.
PARAMORE. No: on the contrary, it has been — er — called in question. The Colonel now believes himself to be in perfectly good health; and my friendly relations with the Cravens are entirely spoiled.
CHARTERIS. Who told him about it?
PARAMORE. I did, of course, the moment I read the news in this. (He shews the Journal and puts it down on the bookstand.)
CHARTERIS. Why, man, you’ve been a messenger of glad tidings! Didn’t you congratulate him?
PARAMORE (scandalised). Congratulate him! Congratulate a man on the worst blow pathological science has received for the last three hundred years!
CHARTERIS. No, no, no. Congratulate him on having his life saved. Congratulate Julia on having her father spared. Swear that your discovery and your reputation are as nothing to you compared with the pleasure of restoring happiness to the household in which the best hopes of your life are centred. Confound it, man, you’ll never get married if you can’t turn things to account with a woman in these little