Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 90

He always has been in love with me, for years and years. [_Sighs._] Poor Reggie!

CECIL. On the contrary. Happy Reggie!

EVELYN [_astonished_]. What _do_ you mean?

CECIL. To have been in love with you years and years. _I've_ only been in love with you a week.... I've only known you a week.

EVELYN. I'm afraid Reggie didn't look at it like that.

CECIL [_nods_]. No brains.

EVELYN. You see, I always refused _him_.

CECIL. Exactly. And he always went on loving you. What more could the silly fellow want?

EVELYN [_shyly, looking up at him_]. He _wanted_ me to accept him, I suppose.

[_The bird chatter dies away._]

CECIL. Ah!... Reggie ought to read Keats's "Ode to a Grecian Urn."... I say, what jolly eyes you've got! I noticed them the moment we met here in the wood. That was why I spoke to you.

EVELYN [_demurely_]. I thought it was to ask your way back to the inn.

CECIL. That was an excuse. I knew the way as well as you did. I'd only just come from there. But when I saw you with the suns.h.i.+ne on your pretty soft hair and lighting up your pretty soft eyes, I said I _must_ speak to her. And I did. Are you glad I spoke to you?

EVELYN. Yes.

CECIL. Glad and glad?

EVELYN. Yes.

CECIL. Good girl! [_Leans over and kisses her cheek._]

EVELYN [_sigh of contentment; sits up_]. And now we must go and tell mother.

CECIL [_with a comic groan_]. Need we?

EVELYN [_brightly_]. Of course.

CECIL [_sigh_]. Well, if _you_ think so.

EVELYN [_laughing_]. You don't seem to look forward to it much.

CECIL. I don't. That's the part I always hate.

EVELYN. _Always?_ [_Starts forward and looks at him, puzzled._]

CECIL [_quite unconscious_]. Yes. The going to the parents and all that.

Parents really are the most preposterous people. They've no feeling for _romance_ whatever. You meet a girl in a wood. It's May. The sun's s.h.i.+ning. There's not a cloud in the sky. She's adorably pretty. You fall in love. Everything heavenly! Then--why, I can't imagine--she wants you to tell her mother. Well, you do tell her mother. And her mother at once begins to ask you what your profession is, and how much money you earn, and how much money you have that you don't earn--and that spoils it all.

EVELYN [_bewildered_]. But I don't understand. You talk as if you had actually done all this before.

CECIL. So I have. Lots of times.

EVELYN. Oh! [_Jumps up from the ground and faces him, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng with rage._]

CECIL. I say, don't get up. It's not time to go yet. It's only four. Sit down again.

EVELYN [_struggling for words_]. Do you mean to say you've been in love with girls before? _Other_ girls?

CECIL [_apparently genuinely astonished at the question_]. Of course I have.

EVELYN. And been engaged to them?

CECIL. Not engaged. I've never been engaged so far. But I've been in love over and over again.

[_Evelyn stamps her foot with rage--turning away from him._]

My dear girl, what _is_ the matter? You look quite cross. [_Rises._]

EVELYN [_furious_]. And you're not even _ashamed_ of it?

CECIL [_roused to sit up by this question_]. Ashamed of it? Ashamed of being in love? How can you say such a thing! Of course I'm not ashamed.

What's the good of being alive at all if one isn't to be in love? I'm perpetually in love. In fact, I'm hardly ever out of love--with somebody.

EVELYN [_still furious_]. Then if you're in love, why don't you get engaged? A man has no business to make love to a girl and not be engaged to her. It's not right.

CECIL [_reasoning with her_]. That's the parents' fault. I told you parents were preposterous people. They won't allow me to get engaged.

EVELYN. Why not?

CECIL. Oh, for different reasons. They say I'm not _serious_ enough. Or that I don't work enough. Or that I haven't got enough money. Or else they simply say they "don't think I'm fitted to make their daughter happy." Anyhow, they won't sanction an engagement. They all agree about _that_. Your mother would be just the same.

[_Impatient exclamation from Evelyn._]

I don't blame her. I don't say she's not right. I don't say they haven't all been right. In fact, I believe they _have_ been right. I'm only explaining how it is.

EVELYN [_savagely_]. I see how it is. You don't really want to be married.

CECIL. Of course I don't _want_ to be married. n.o.body does unless he's perfectly idiotic. One wants to be in love. Being in love's splendid.

And I dare say being engaged isn't bad--though I've had no experience of that so far. But being married must be simply hateful.

EVELYN [_boiling with rage_]. Nonsense! How can it be hateful to be married if it's splendid to be in love?

[_The cuckoo is heard._]

CECIL. Have you forgotten the cuckoo?

EVELYN. Oh!!!