The Big Drum - LightNovelsOnl.com
You're reading novel online at LightNovelsOnl.com. Please use the follow button to get notifications about your favorite novels and its latest chapters so you can come back anytime and won't miss anything.
OTTOLINE.
[_Starting up._] Oh, do try to be understanding and sympathetic! Mr.
Mackworth is a high-souled, n.o.ble fellow. If I'd been honest with myself, I should have married him ten years ago. To me this is a golden dream come true. Recollect my bitter experience of the _other_ sort of marriage! [_Walking away to the fireplace._] Why grudge me a spark of romance in my life!
SIR RANDLE.
[_Raising his hands._] Romance!
LADY FILSON.
[_To_ SIR RANDLE _and_ BERTRAM.] Just now she was resenting our considering her a child!
OTTOLINE.
[_Looking down upon the flowers in the grate._] Romance doesn't belong to youth, mother. Youth is greedy for reality--the toy that feels solid in its fingers. _I_ was, and bruised myself with it. After such a lesson as I've had, one yearns for something less tangible--something that lifts one morally out of oneself--an ideal----!
SIR RANDLE.
Ha! An extract from a novel of Mr. Mackworth's apparently!
LADY FILSON.
[_Harshly._] Ha, ha, ha, ha----!
OTTOLINE.
[_Turning sharply and coming forward._] Sss.h.!.+ Don't you sneer, mother!
Don't you sneer, Dad! [_Her eyes flas.h.i.+ng._] _C'est au-dessus de vous de sentir ce qu'il y a d'eleve et de grand!_ [_Fiercely._] _Tenez!
Qu'il vous plaise ou non----!_
[_She is checked by the entrance of_ UNDERWOOD _from the hall._
UNDERWOOD.
[_Addressing the back of_ LADY FILSON_'s head._] Mr. Philip Mackworth, m'lady.
LADY FILSON.
[_Straightening herself._] Not for me. [_Firmly._] For Madame de Chaumie.
UNDERWOOD.
I beg pardon, m'lady. The gentleman inquired for your ladys.h.i.+p----
OTTOLINE.
[_To_ UNDERWOOD.] In the drawing-room--[_with a queenly air_] no, in my own room.
UNDERWOOD.
[_To_ OTTOLINE.] Yes, mad'm.
[UNDERWOOD _withdraws._
OTTOLINE.
[_Approaching_ SIR RANDLE _and_ LADY FILSON.] Dad--mother----?
LADY FILSON.
Your father may do as he chooses. [_Rising and crossing to the writing-table, where she sits and prepares to write._] I have letters to answer.
OTTOLINE.
[_To_ SIR RANDLE.] Dad----?
SIR RANDLE.
[_Rising._] Impossible--impossible. [_Marching to the fireplace._] I cannot act apart from your dear mother. [_His back to the fireplace, virtuously._] I never act apart from your dear mother.
OTTOLINE.
_Comme vous voudrez!_ [_Moving to the glazed door and there pausing._]
You _won't_----?
[SIR RANDLE _blinks at the ceiling again._ LADY FILSON _scribbles audibly with a scratchy pen._ OTTOLINE _goes out, closing the door._
BERTRAM.
[_Jumping up as the door shuts--in an expostulatory tone._] Good heavens! My dear father--my dear mother----!
SIR RANDLE.
[_Coming to earth._] Eh?
BERTRAM.
[_Agitatedly._] My sister will pack her trunks and be off to an hotel if you're not careful. She won't stand this, I mean t'say. There'll be a marriage at the registrar's, or some ghastly proceeding--a scandal--all kinds of gossip----!
LADY FILSON.
[_Throwing down her pen and rising--holding her heart._] Oh----!
BERTRAM.
[_With energy._] I mean to say----!
SIR RANDLE.
