Chapter I: Prologue

_The country-house, once a farmhouse of the better sort, but now become the residence of the owners of the estate, is a shabby, homelike, livable place. The walls of the living-room are wainscotted in warm brown, with plaster above, and hung with sporting prints and pictures of battle. The ceiling is raftered. At the right of the audience is a big fireplace, with a trophy of arms above it. On the mantel-shelf are a brace of old-fashioned metal candlesticks, and a fair-sized loving-cup of silver. A low fire burns upon the hearth. At either side of the fireplace are doors. The one toward the back of the room leads to a coat-closet, the one toward the front to inner rooms. At the left of the audience a door leads to the kitchens, etc. At the back a two-fold outer door opens on a brick terrace, with a suggestion of garden lying below. Beyond the balustrade of the terrace you may glimpse springtide country, with fields under cultivation, fruit-trees smothered with blossoms, and, in the distance, the tower of a little church and the roofs of a peaceful hamlet. At either side of this main door are casement windows. Those at the left make of that ample corner of the room a huge bow-window, with slightly raised floor and cushioned seat. The furniture is simple, massive and good: a Jacobean settle, at right angles to the hearth, a chest beneath the windows at the right, a gate-legged table at the centre, a heavy writing table, well down at the left, with smokers’ stuff, a lamp, a work-basket, a small stand in the bow-window, with a bowl of gold-fish, and the usual complement of serviceable and comfortable chairs._

_The season is May. The time is sunset._

_In the bow-window, reading in the late light, with books scattered about him, and the gold-fish at his elbow, sits the Professor, a scholarly and somewhat opinionated gentleman of seventy, with a wrinkled, not altogether unkindly, face and white hair. His sister, Lydia, sixty-odd, but erect and spirited, sits on the settle, playing Patience at a little table. She wears a bit of fine lace by way of cap, but her gown of plum-color is never so little out of fashion. At the chest Katherine is arranging flowers in two low bowls, slowly and carefully, as one who loves flowers and respects them. She is perhaps thirty, of the type that, for lack of better word, we describe as Madonna, born to be a mother to everything in sight, but with her goodness spiced with a saving sense of humor. She wears a soft gray house-dress. On the floor at the left kneels Roland, a paper soldier-cap upon his head, at play with toy soldiers, ranged in ranks, and a toy gun. He is six or seven years old, the sort of little lad to make any mother proud. He speaks, as the curtain rises._

ROLAND. Bang! [_Knocks down the toy soldiers._] See, Mummy, our men have killed all the foreigners.

KATHERINE. Why do you want to kill them, son?

ROLAND. Because they’re foreigners.

KATHERINE. Roland!

LYDIA. Do let the boy alone! You wouldn’t have him play with dolls.

ROLAND. I’ll be the colonel, like my grandpa was. He killed the nasty foreigners, didn’t he, Mummy?

KATHERINE [_setting flowers on the centre table_]. That was ever so long ago. We are at peace with all the world now. We shall always be at peace.

PROFESSOR. Have you seen the newspapers?

KATHERINE [_setting flowers on the writing table_]. Of course I haven’t. Not since day before yesterday. But who cares for the stuff they print? [_Sits by the table, takes up her sewing._] Civilized nations don’t fight each other.

[_From the terrace come in quickly Gertrude and Basil, both in tramping clothes. She is in her early twenties, impulsive, passionate, and altogether charming. He is in his late teens, with the erect and masterful carriage that stamps him as a military cadet. Both carry newspapers._]

BASIL. Hello, folks! We’ve got the papers.

PROFESSOR [_rising excitedly_]. Well, well, well!

BASIL [_giving him a newspaper_]. Yesterday’s. Best we could do. [_Tosses his cap on the chest._]

GERTRUDE. Clear to the Corner we had to tramp to get them. Of all the luck! To be poked into this dead and alive place, a hundred miles from everywhere, at such a time! [_Flings paper on table._]

LYDIA. Hush! Tell me if there’s any news.

[_Gertrude hangs her coat and hat in the closet._]

BASIL. I should say there was news.

PROFESSOR [_reading paper_]. Ultimatum! Well, well!

KATHERINE [_startled, but only for a moment_]. Ultimatum!

PROFESSOR. Outrageous! Insolent!

[_Katherine resumes her sewing._]

BASIL. They think we’ll back down, just because we don’t swagger about, armed to the teeth. Well, when it comes to business, we’ll show them a thing or two.

PROFESSOR. Yes. When this great nation of ours is once roused—

BASIL. Why, I’d back one of our chaps with his bare fists to do up two of those foreign Johnnies with their rifles.

GERTRUDE [_coming to the hearth_]. Oh, for goodness’ sake, talk sense!

PROFESSOR. I trust you do not doubt the spirit and courage of your countrymen?

GERTRUDE. No. But you’re all making the mistake of doubting the spirit and courage of other people’s countrymen.

LYDIA. Meaning—

GERTRUDE. The foreigners are as brave as we are.

BASIL. Oh, come now!

GERTRUDE. If it comes to war, they’ll put up just as good a fight as we will.

PROFESSOR. Pshaw! [_Disgusted, he retires into the bow-window with his paper._]

GERTRUDE. And they’re in condition to fight. They have bigger guns than ours, explosives we don’t even know the names of. Phil says—

BASIL. Oh, it’s Phil’s talk you’re handing us out.

GERTRUDE [_going up to him_]. Yes, and it’s sensible talk, too.

BASIL. Well, I must say that I think—

LYDIA. Children! Children!

[_Robert has meantime appeared in the outer doorway, a likable chap of thirty-odd, the best type, perhaps, of Landjunker or of country squire. He wears country clothes, and evidently has come from tramping his fields._]

ROBERT. Hello! So the war’s broke out right here, eh?

ROLAND [_running to him_]. Daddy!

BASIL. Trudie’s got to quoting Phil.

GERTRUDE. And Basil is absurd. [_She retires to the window at right._]

LYDIA. And your mother, I believe, is also absurd.

ROBERT. There, there! Of course you are not. Any mail come in?

KATHERINE. They haven’t got that bridge mended yet.

BASIL. They’re still sending round by the Corner, when they send at all. [_He strolls out upon the terrace, where he lights a cigarette._]

ROBERT. Humph! Hoped I’d get word about that new cultivator. [_Goes to the smoking table and gets a pipe._]

[_Roland returns to his toys._]

KATHERINE. Did Phil come in with you?

ROBERT. No. He stopped at the gamekeeper’s. Seems the baby is coming down with whooping cough or something.

GERTRUDE. Did you come round by the ten acre? [_Sits by table centre._]

ROBERT. Yes. Ought to get a second crop off it this season. You know, it will play the mischief with our getting fertilizers, if the fools should rush us into war.

KATHERINE. Oh, but they won’t.

ROLAND. Daddy, will you please mend my soldier?

ROBERT. Sure thing! Been in the thick of the fight, hasn’t he? Get me the glue, son. [_Sits by table centre._]

KATHERINE. Here you are, Roland. [_Gives him a tube of glue from the writing table._]

ROLAND. Thank you! Here, Daddy.

ROBERT. Right! [_Mends soldier, while Roland leans against his knee._] Poor old chap! Lost both legs, hasn’t he? That’s what your Uncle Basil is aching to do, ever since he got to be a cadet. Go out and fight somebody, anybody, and come home in fragments. [_Looking up at Basil._] Eh, Bub?

BASIL. Great thing to sit and laugh, when your country is threatened.

ROBERT. Oh, I’ve lived through two big war scares in my day. Mother’s lived through half a dozen.

LYDIA. And through two wars, remember.

PROFESSOR. Do you realize, Robert, that they have sent us an ultimatum?

ROBERT. Ever watch two dogs, with a fence between ’em, tearing along, barking, ready to chew each other up, till they come to an open gate and can get at each other? Then down go their tails, and home they go. That’s the way it will be this time. We’ll snarl at each other till it comes to the point of fighting, and then the common sense of the average citizen—

[_Roland goes back to his toys._]

KATHERINE. That’s what I keep saying. As if people could fight nowadays!

LYDIA. Nonsense! Men have always fought. They always will fight. Doesn’t it say in the Bible: “I come not to bring peace, but a sword”?

KATHERINE. Yes. And doesn’t it say also: “Agree with thine adversary”?

PROFESSOR [_rising, annoyed_]. My dear ladies, those old legends of Christianity are not at all pertinent. Now let me tell you—

KATHERINE. Roland! Run fetch some bread for Uncle’s gold-fish. Run! [_Roland runs out at the left._] Now I know you’re going to say something barbaric.

LYDIA. Barbaric fiddlesticks! Just commonsense.

PROFESSOR. Thank you, my dear sister. As I was about to say, if you will read my compendium of international relations—

ROBERT [_rising_]. We have! [_Goes to closet and gets string with which he mends the toy._]

PROFESSOR. You will understand that wars are the outcome of great folk movements over which individuals have no control. As a scholar and a philosopher, then, I must believe—

[_Roland runs in again._]

ROLAND. Now may I feed the gold-fish, Uncle?

PROFESSOR. Yes, yes. As I was about to say—Not too fast, sonny! Not too fast! There! Slowly! That way! I was about to remark that wars after all work for the good of the race.

BASIL. Nothing like war to put an edge on a nation.

PROFESSOR. And not merely are the martial virtues stimulated, but literature and learning revive and flourish.

KATHERINE. In a bloodstained soil?

PROFESSOR. So many of you dear women can see nothing in war but the pain and suffering that are merely incidental.

LYDIA. It’s a sentimental viewpoint.

[_Roland in the bow-window takes up and examines one of his uncle’s books._]

PROFESSOR. Now I solemnly believe that we are on the eve of conflict.

ROBERT. The folks that talk like you are doing their best to get us into one.

BASIL. If they want a fight, let ’em have it, I say!

GERTRUDE. Oh, have a chip on your shoulder, if you must. But be sure you’re ready for the people that will try to knock it off.

LYDIA. This talk about being ready is downright blasphemous.

ROBERT. Quite a strong word, Mother.

LYDIA. Our country has been victorious in every war in its history. Doesn’t that prove that God is on our side? And if God is for us—

[_Robert reseats himself at the table._]

PROFESSOR. National destiny. I, for one, believe this war is not only inevitable, but desirable.

ROLAND [_coming to his mother, with an open book_]. O Mummy! What’s this horrid picture? He’s eating folks alive.

KATHERINE. Let’s see, son! [_Takes book._] “They made their children pass through the fire to Moloch.”

ROLAND. Who was Moloch, Mummy?

KATHERINE. He was their god, laddie. They gave him their children to devour, and they thought it was a noble thing to do.

PROFESSOR. Sun worship merely. Moloch is another name for Baal.

KATHERINE. I wonder if it’s not another name for the god of war.

PROFESSOR. My dear Kate, your mythology is hopelessly confused. [_Retires again to his paper._]

KATHERINE. Oh, I’m not talking mythology. Just sense.

GERTRUDE. It’s time somebody did.

ROBERT. Steady!

KATHERINE. The god of war—the awful monster with the flaming jaws, and the nations running joyously to fling him their youngest and strongest and best.

LYDIA. Sentimental nonsense, Kate.

ROLAND. And will Moloch eat us, too, Mummy?

KATHERINE [_kissing him_]. Oh, no, no, dear! Of course not. That was ever so long ago.

ROBERT. And they were just heathen that didn’t know any better. Not good sensible Christian people, like ourselves.

KATHERINE. There, dear, put the book away, and don’t think any more about it.

[_Roland replaces the book on the window seat and returns to his toys._]

BASIL. Believe I’ll step down to the village and see if they’ve done anything about getting the mail across. [_Gets cap._] It will be no joke for me, if my leave’s been withdrawn and I’ve not got word.

PROFESSOR. Wait a moment, Basil! You did not find the air damp, Robert?

ROBERT. Dry as one of your lectures, sir.

PROFESSOR. Then, Basil, I’ll go with you.

BASIL. I’ll fetch your hat, sir. [_Goes to closet._]

PROFESSOR. I, too, have a barbarous interest in what is going on. [_Taking hat from Basil._] Thanks, my boy! Can’t be too careful, you know. I hate to lie awake at night coughing.

[_Basil and the Professor go out at the terrace door._]

GERTRUDE. Uncle Charles is particular about his own comfort. [_Rises._] More than he is about the comfort of the men he’s so eager to send to do the fighting. [_Goes to the bow-window, obviously waiting and watching for some one._]

ROBERT. Two of a kind, Uncle and Basil. And it’s the kind that kicks over all our apple-carts. Here’s your man, son. Good as new!

[_Roland puts away his toys._]

LYDIA. Basil’s profession was your father’s profession. It would have been yours, if you had been physically fit.

ROBERT [_rising_]. Yes. That astigmatism in my left eye did me a mighty good turn, when it kept me out of the army.

LYDIA. Robert!

ROBERT [_going to her_]. Well, well, Mother, I do enough for honor and glory when I turn out once a year with a regiment of defensibles. Rest of the time I’m not keen on being an anachronism in gold braid and an air-tight helmet. [_Sits by table and takes up newspaper._]

[_Martha comes in at the right, a middle-aged servant, kindly and commonplace._]

MARTHA. If you please, it’s Master Roland’s bed time.

ROLAND. I don’t want to go to bed.

MARTHA. Come, come, Master Roland! Why, you’d ought to see my little niece Patty go when she’s bid.

ROLAND. I don’t want to—

KATHERINE. Roland!

ROLAND. Well, will you come hear me say my prayers, Mummy?

KATHERINE. Yes, dear. Run along now!

ROLAND. Good night, Aunt Trudie!

GERTRUDE [_kissing him_]. Good night, darling.

ROLAND. Good night, Granny. I’ll take my sword into bed with me, so you needn’t be scared if the enemy should come.

LYDIA. Bless the boy!

ROLAND. Good night, Daddy!

ROBERT. Good night, old man.

MARTHA. Come, Master Roland!

ROLAND. But you won’t need to wash my hands, Martha. They were washed once to-day.

[_Roland and Martha go out at the right._]

KATHERINE. Why, I didn’t realize it was his bedtime. [_Folds work._] Phil is a long time at the gamekeeper’s.

GERTRUDE. Rob! [_Goes to the table._] If there should be war—what would happen to Phil?

ROBERT. Don’t begin to worry. There won’t be war.

LYDIA. Those foreigners will give way, when they see we’re in earnest. A cowardly lot!

GERTRUDE. Phil isn’t exactly what I should call a coward. Cowards don’t win races in monoplanes in a high wind. [_Goes to terrace door._]

ROBERT. Where going, Trudie?

GERTRUDE. Just across the garden.

LYDIA. It’s past sunset.

GERTRUDE. I’m only going a little step.

[_Gertrude goes out._]

LYDIA. I can’t help thinking it would be in better taste just now if Philip went back to his own country.

ROBERT. He happens to have a year more of work at the laboratory.

LYDIA. Then let him go back to his old laboratory, instead of hanging round here, putting notions into my daughter’s head.

KATHERINE. You know his chief ordered him to take this fortnight off. He was getting a bit seedy.

LYDIA. You’ll always make excuses for him.

ROBERT. We owe him something, Mother.

LYDIA. He did no more than any physician is bound to do.

KATHERINE. Look here, Mother, you weren’t here, that awful night. You didn’t see Roland lying there, with his poor little face congested, fighting for every single breath, a losing fight, and we, with all our love, just helpless. And then Rob brought Phil to me.

ROBERT. We hadn’t been very nice to that lot of noisy young doctors, camped down by the ford, had we, Kate?

KATHERINE [_rising_]. Why, half of them were foreigners. [_Goes to table._] Until that night, I don’t think that I’d dreamed that foreigners were quite the same as ourselves. But when Phil came in I—I just fell at his feet, as if he had been sent from God Himself, praying: “Save my only one! Oh, save my baby!”

[_Robert rises and goes to her._]

LYDIA. That’s his business, isn’t it?

KATHERINE. And when the tube filled up, and we thought it was all over, Phil put his lips to the tube and drew out the poison that was suffocating our boy.

LYDIA. Other doctors have done as much.

KATHERINE [_heatedly_]. But Phil had cut his lip, remember! He took a big risk, with his eyes open, for a stranger’s child—for our child!

ROBERT. There, there!

KATHERINE [_sits by table_]. Well, I shan’t forget that, ever. [_Dries her eyes._]

LYDIA [_rises, sets Patience table by the hearth_]. That’s all very fine, but I hope that Gertrude won’t make a fool of herself over the fellow. Get my shawl, Robert! I’ll take a little step in the garden, too. [_Goes to door._]

[_Robert gets shawl from closet._]

KATHERINE [_rising_]. Now you know it’s getting a bit damp, Mother.

LYDIA. Fiddlesticks! If Charles can venture out, I can. Always an old Betty about his precious health.

ROBERT. Here you are, Mother. [_Folds shawl about her._] Shall I come with you?

LYDIA. I don’t need help yet a while in managing my own children, thanks!

[_Lydia goes out at the terrace door._]

ROBERT. She’s got her hands full, this time.

KATHERINE. You mean—

ROBERT. I know.

KATHERINE [_going to him_]. You know that Phil and Gertrude are in love with each other?

ROBERT. He asked my permission this afternoon. Her guardian and all that sort of thing.

KATHERINE. Well, if they’re only one half as happy as we’ve been—

ROBERT [_his arms about her_]. Rubbed along pretty well, haven’t we, old girl?

KATHERINE. I don’t ask for better. There! Run along after mother, do. Don’t let her break in on them and spoil this minute. It won’t come again.

ROBERT. I say! Do you remember the night when we first—

KATHERINE. Now don’t be foolish. [_Kisses him._] Run!

[_Robert goes out. The room is now dusky with twilight. Katherine goes to the hearth and lights the candles on the mantel-shelf. As she is busied with the second candle, Phil comes quickly from the terrace. A well built young man, headlong and sufficiently likable. He wears a Norfolk suit and a cap which he tosses upon the chest. At the slight noise of his entrance Katherine turns._]

KATHERINE. O Phil! I’m to congratulate you. Yes?

PHIL [_catching both her hands_]. Rob has told you, then? And I have just this minute spoke with her.

KATHERINE. Nearer the stars than ever you came in your airship, aren’t you?

PHIL. The airship? Oh, I give up the flying now. I am getting down to work. To-morrow I go back to the city.

KATHERINE. But—

PHIL. Oh, yes. I am all rested. I can see straight what was all thick before. You watch me now, put it through, for her sake.

KATHERINE [_sitting on the settle_]. Your research? You never told us much about it.

PHIL. It is too big a thing almost to speak about. [_Sits by her._] It is, I think, almost I can some day put my hand on how to cure what we are most afraid of. Living death, I mean. Death by torture. Cancer.

KATHERINE. A-ah! That was how my mother died. I watched her. O Phil! If you can do that, it’s like grace sent down from Heaven.

PHIL. I don’t say I can. I mean only, with time, with work—Lord! How I can work now! Funny! They used, you know, the old chaps, to bring to the women they loved heads of their enemies, men they’d killed. To-day maybe we bring to a woman so many people saved, men and women and little kiddies, perhaps. That’s a pretty worth-while gift, eh?

[_Roland comes in from the right, in blue pajamas and slippers._]

ROLAND. O Mummy! You never came to hear my prayers.

KATHERINE. You bad one! Run to bed, quick!

[_Roland lags snail-like toward the door._]

PHIL. Oh, let him stay up for a minute, please! Come along, kiddie! [_Takes Roland on his knee._] Well, old pal! What have you done all day?

ROLAND. I’ve been playing war. We killed the foreigners.

KATHERINE. Roland!

PHIL. So so! And will you kill me, too?

ROLAND [_with his arm about Phil’s neck_]. You’re not a foreigner. If anybody tries to kill you ever, I will take my sword—

KATHERINE. That’s enough, dear. Come say your prayers.

ROLAND. I want Uncle Phil to say his prayers with me.

PHIL. I’m afraid I have forgotten how.

ROLAND. I’ll show you. [_Slips from Phil’s knee._] You kneel, you know, like this. [_Kneels before Katherine._]

KATHERINE. Phil, dear! To-night—

PHIL. It is, I think, twenty years since—[_Glances from the child to the mother, then kneels beside Roland._] She would have loved you, my mother.

ROLAND.

“Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep!”

Make me kind! Keep me clean! Make me a good boy, for the dear Lord’s sake. Amen!

PHIL [_half whimsically_]. Make me a good boy for her dear sake!

KATHERINE [_her hand on his shoulder_]. Amen!

MARTHA [_outside_]. Master Roland! Master Roland!

[_Phil jumps up in some embarrassment and goes to the other side of the room. Martha comes in at the right. Roland springs up and runs away from her._]

MARTHA. Come to bed, sir! Come! [_Trying vainly to catch Roland._] My niece Patty never acted like this.

[_Robert comes in from the terrace. Roland runs to him._]

ROLAND. Let me stay up a minute, Daddy!

ROBERT. Well, it’s a special sort of night. [_Goes to the hearth._]

ROLAND [_running to Phil_]. I’m going to stay up! I’m going to stay up!

ROBERT [_taking down the loving-cup_]. We’ll want this prize cup of Phil’s, won’t we, Kate?

KATHERINE. Oh, yes. And there’s a bottle of the ’97 left.

ROBERT. Fine! [_Crosses._] Fill it, Martha.

MARTHA. Yes, sir.

[_Martha goes out at left with the cup._]

ROBERT [_going to Phil_]. It’s all right, old son. Trudie is with her mother. And Trudie could persuade the legs off a brass kettle.

ROLAND [_at the terrace door_]. Oh, the moon! [_Seizes Katherine’s hand and draws her to the door._] See the moon, Mummy! There, above the pear-trees. Will the rabbits come out and dance? The Woodsy Boy says they do.

KATHERINE. Hush! Who is that coming across the garden?

ROLAND. Oh, it’s my Woodsy Boy!

[_Roland runs out on the terrace._]

ROBERT. Who does he mean?

KATHERINE. A little chap that we’ve met in the wood, Roland and I. Roland! [_She follows the child out upon the terrace._]

ROLAND [_outside_]. Yes, Mummy.

KATHERINE [_outside_]. You’ll catch your death!

[_Roland comes into the room from the terrace, with the Woodsy Boy, a slender lad of sixteen or seventeen, shy, big-eyed, quick-motioned, like a faun. He is barefooted and bareheaded, in old brown trousers and shirt. In his arms he carries a little cur. Katherine follows them into the room._]

ROLAND. Come in! Don’t be scared. My Uncle Phil can make him well.

WOODSY BOY. He has broken his leg, please.

ROBERT. Hello! Poor little beggar! It’s your job, Phil.

KATHERINE. Roland! Don’t look! [_She leads Roland to the settle, and places him upon it._]

PHIL. You will let me take him, yes? [_Takes the dog._] It hurts, eh?

[_Martha comes in at the left with the loving-cup._]

MARTHA. Here’s the cup, sir.

ROBERT. Put it down. We’re a clinic just now.

[_Martha sets the cup on the table at centre._]

PHIL. It’s broken, all right. Lay a paper across the table, will you, Rob? [_Robert spreads a paper on the writing table._] We’ll want some warm water, Martha, and some cloths.

MARTHA. Yes, sir.

[_Martha goes out at left._]

PHIL. If you have pencils handy, they’ll make corking splints. [_Brings the dog to the writing table, where he works over him._]

ROBERT. Hold on! I’ll give you a light. [_Lights lamp on table._]

PHIL. Steady, old sport! I’m your friend.

ROBERT. Quiet him, will you, sonny?

[_Woodsy Boy runs to the table and strokes the dog._]

KATHERINE. What a shame that your pet is hurt!

WOODSY BOY. He isn’t mine, lady. I found him. Over there by the upper lake.

KATHERINE. But that’s a long distance for you to walk.

WOODSY BOY. He was in pain. So I had to bring him.

[_Martha comes in again with a basin of water and some cloths._]

MARTHA. Here’s the warm water, sir.

ROBERT. Fine! [_Sets basin on table._] Here you are, Phil.

PHIL. We’ll fix him all right now.

MARTHA. Poor creature! I’d better get him something to eat.

ROBERT. Sure thing! Kill him with indigestion. He’ll die happy.

KATHERINE. Can’t you find an old basket for him?

MARTHA. Oh, yes, ma’am. And I’ll get him a bone, too.

[_Martha goes out at left._]

PHIL. Hold on! We haven’t rags enough.

ROBERT. Here you are! [_Tearing up his handkerchief._] Wait a bit!

[_Basil comes in from the terrace, heatedly, and stands brushing the mud from his trousers._]

BASIL. Well, of all the damned luck!

ROBERT. Hold your horses, Bub! What’s up?

BASIL. I can’t get across the beastly river. And how do I know what’s waiting for me, there at the postmaster’s, and forty feet of bad water, or fifteen miles of road between us?

WOODSY BOY. Do you want the mail, Mister?

BASIL. Do I want it? Rather!

WOODSY BOY. I’ll get it. [_Runs to terrace door._]

KATHERINE. Child alive! You can’t get across the river. The bridge is down.

WOODSY BOY [_laughing_]. Oh, yes. But I can get across. There’s a place I know, and nobody else. You wait. I’ll show you.

[_The Woodsy Boy runs out._]

PHIL. Hold the light nearer, Rob! Catch hold, Basil, please! Keep the little beggar still.

[_The three men crowd about the writing table. Gertrude runs in from the terrace._]

GERTRUDE. O Kate! [_Goes to Katherine._] You know, don’t you?

KATHERINE [_embracing her_]. I’m so happy over it.

GERTRUDE. Mother almost forgave Phil for being a foreigner.

PHIL. Give us a splint. Get busy!

KATHERINE. Nice things, aren’t they, those men of ours!

GERTRUDE. Kate! If there should be war!

KATHERINE. Why, there can’t be. Men like those three, at each other’s throats, food for cannon— Oh, it’s madness to think of it!

[_Martha comes in from the left with a basket._]

MARTHA. Here’s the basket, sir. [_She crosses and stands by Roland._]

BASIL. Just make him comfy. Then I’ll put him out in the lean-to.

[_Basil takes the dog in the basket and goes out at left. Robert goes to the table at centre. Professor comes in from the terrace, closely followed by Lydia._]

PROFESSOR. Dear, dear! It is long past the hour for covering the gold-fish. And you didn’t remember, Kate!

KATHERINE. I’m sorry, Uncle. [_She joins him in the bow-window._] But I’m sure they haven’t caught cold. [_She helps him to cover the globe with a cloth._]

GERTRUDE. Mother, dear!

LYDIA. I am quite resigned. [_She pauses before the settle._] Philip! [_Phil hastily is drying his hands._] Whenever you are at liberty—

PHIL. Dear lady! [_Goes to her._]

LYDIA [_giving him her hand_]. You have my consent. [_Phil kisses her hand._] No doubt I should be grateful that you asked it. [_She sits on the settle._]

[_Basil comes in again from the left._]

GERTRUDE [_eager to make amends for her mother’s brusqueness_]. Phil dear! [_Draws near him._]

BASIL. Oh, I say! Is that what you’re driving at, you two?

KATHERINE. Where were your eyes, you bat?

PROFESSOR. Felicitations, then, are in order?

ROLAND. What is it all about?

PHIL. The biggest thing in the world, kiddie.

GERTRUDE. Uncle Phil is going to be your really uncle, not a pretend uncle.

ROLAND. Is he, Daddy?

ROBERT. Perhaps we’d better let him—if he promises to be good!

ROLAND. And he’ll stay with us always? Isn’t that jolly, Granny?

LYDIA. Well, I suppose it is.

GERTRUDE. O Mother, you know you’re just as happy as the rest of us.

KATHERINE. And that’s pretty happy.

ROBERT. Right you are! [_Takes cup._] Here’s to you, Sis! And to you, old son! All the love that’s in all our hearts—

BASIL. Me, too!

ROBERT. —out of this loving-cup. Drink first, Trudie!

GERTRUDE. Thank you, Rob! [_Drinks._] It’s your turn, Phil.

[_Their hands are on the cup, when the Woodsy Boy runs in from the terrace with newspapers._]

WOODSY BOY. Here are the papers. I couldn’t read them. But the people, they all said: War!

KATHERINE. Oh, no!

ROBERT. Let me see!

BASIL. Give it here!

[_Both snatch papers from the Woodsy Boy. Basil gives a paper to the Professor. Robert sits at table, flinging open the paper._]

PHIL. It can’t be. [_Sets down the cup._]

GERTRUDE. Phil! Oh, but you— What will become of you?

ROBERT [_from paper_]. War was declared at midnight.

LYDIA. It’s come, then.

PROFESSOR. Just as I foretold.

KATHERINE. Oh, no, no! God wouldn’t let it be.

BASIL [_from paper_]. They’ve stoned our ambassador. They’ve dragged our flag in the mud.

PROFESSOR. Exactly what they did thirty years ago.

LYDIA. A foreigner is always a foreigner.

PROFESSOR. Racial differences outcrop—

PHIL. Racial differences? What do you talk of? This is the twentieth century. We’re past the tribal stage.

BASIL [_striking the paper with his fist_]. Your people aren’t even past the caveman stage.

ROBERT [_rising_]. Go easy, Basil!

PHIL. It has come, it seems, Rob, the thing we agreed was quite impossible.

ROBERT. Old man, nothing is changed between you and me, remember. Nothing is going to change.

KATHERINE. Of course not.

GERTRUDE. It can’t make any difference. We won’t let it make any difference, will we, Phil? Will we?

PHIL. Between us two? No!

BASIL. You can’t help yourselves. It’s war now. War!

WOODSY BOY [_touching Robert’s sleeve_]. Is it because of the war he must go away?

ROBERT. What do you mean?

WOODSY BOY. The men down in the village, they were saying he must go.

LYDIA. And they’re right. I’ve lived through two wars.

GERTRUDE. Mother!

PHIL. And I was tending their children, just this afternoon.

KATHERINE. Oh, they can’t mean to drive him away?

BASIL. Can’t they? [_Beside himself._] Look here! See what his people have done to our people! [_Gives paper to Robert._] Look! Look!

ROBERT. Good God! Our women—outraged. Little children, taken out of their mothers’ arms, torn to pieces.

PHIL. You believe those stories?

BASIL. We know the sort they are, the dirty brutes!

ROBERT. Go slow there!

PHIL. Am I a—dirty brute?

KATHERINE. Basil!

PHIL. Rob! Tell me! In this house, now, where do I stand?

ROBERT. You are—our guest.

KATHERINE [_going to Robert_]. Our friend, Rob. Our best friend.

GERTRUDE. Why, Rob! You don’t mean—

PHIL [_with authority_]. Please, Trudie! Please! [_To Robert._] You take them seriously, then, these lies to sell your newspapers?

BASIL. Maybe it’s a lie that our country is honeycombed with your infernal spy system. Chaps that have been guests in our houses—chaps like yourself—

GERTRUDE [_to Basil_]. Oh! You dare to—

ROBERT [_to Basil_]. Be quiet! [_To Phil._] Of course that’s absurd. But your country and my country are going to fight.

KATHERINE. You said yourself—

ROBERT. That was before war was declared. And before I knew how the foreigners fight.

KATHERINE. Rob!

ROBERT. Now, right or wrong, it’s my country.

LYDIA. Ah!

ROBERT. They’re right, those men in the village. Better go, Phil, while there’s still time.

PHIL. I understand, yes. I leave right away for town. I go and get my things together now. [_Starts toward door right._]

GERTRUDE. You’re driving him away!

PHIL. No, no, dear. It’s just commonsense. In town I see you all again. This war scare blows over maybe. This is then just a good story, eh? Good night, Katherine!

KATHERINE [_giving him her hand_]. Good night, Phil!

PHIL [_to Robert_]. Good night [_shaking Robert’s hand_], old enemy! [_Turns to Gertrude._]

GERTRUDE [_clinging to him_]. You’ll come back? Oh, you’ll come back?

PHIL. Of course I will. [_Kisses her. Roland slips to floor and stands awaiting a farewell._] Good-bye!

[_Phil goes out hastily at the right, ignoring the child._]

ROLAND [_at the point of tears_]. You said he would stay with us always.

[_Gertrude buries her face in her hands, sobbing aloud._]

LYDIA. Hush! [_Draws Roland down on settle beside her, soothing him._]

BASIL. I’ve got to get the eleven o’clock train to town.

ROBERT [_seated at table, with the paper_]. War was declared at midnight.

KATHERINE. Less than twenty-four hours. Already it’s cost us our best friend. Oh, what’s to be the end of it all? [_Her hand on Robert’s shoulder._] What’s to be the end?

[_Robert looks up at her, wondering._]

CURTAIN