Why Marry? — Act 1
ACT I
_Up from the fragrant garden comes a girl, running.
She takes the broad terrace steps two at a stride, laughing, breathless, fleet as a fawn, sweet as a rose.
She is hotly pursued by a boy, handsome, ardent, attractively selfish, and just now blindly determined to catch the pretty creature before she gains the protecting shelter of home.
She is determined to let him but not to let him know it....
There, she might have darted in through the open door, but it is such a cold, formal entrance; she pretends to be exhausted, dodges behind a stone tea-table, and, turning, faces him, each panting and laughing excitedly; she alluring and defiant, he merry and dominant.
_ _She is twenty-five and he is a year or two older, but they are both children; in other words, unmarried.
_ REX
Think I'll let you say that to me?
JEAN
[_making a face at him_] Think I'm afraid of you!
REX
Take it back, I tell you.
JEAN
I won't. REX
I'll make you.
JEAN
[_with a dance step_] Think so, do you?
REX
I warn you.
JEAN
Booh-woo!
[_He makes a feint to the right, then dashes to the left and catches her.
_ REX
[_triumphantly_] Now!...
You would, would you?
JEAN
[_struggling_] Let me go.
REX
I couldn't think of it.
JEAN
[_seizes his hands to free herself--can't_] You're so strong--it isn't fair.
REX
You're so sweet--it isn't fair.
[_Smiling down at her struggles, rejoicing in his strength, her weakness, he gently draws her near.
_ JEAN
[_knows what is coming_] No, Rex.
REX
Yes.
JEAN
You mustn't. REX
But I will.
[_He laughs and kisses her lightly on the cheek.
Therefore she struggles furiously.
Therefore he does it again.
And again.
Suddenly he enfolds her completely and kisses her passionately--cheeks, mouth, eyes--until she gasps in alarm.
Laughter has gone from them now.
_ JEAN
Oh, please!...
some one will come.
REX
[_with the intoxication of such moments_] I don't care who comes--I love you.
JEAN
No ...
let me go.
REX
Not till you kiss me, Jean.
[_JEAN hesitates, brushes his cheek lightly with her lips, and in pretty confusion tries to escape.
_] Not till you say you love me, Jean.
[_Eyes hidden in his coat, she bobs her head.
He laughs and loves it.
_] Say it!
JEAN
I--er--do.
REX
Do _what_?...
_Say_ it!...
[_She cannot.
He swings her about, bringing her face close to his.
_ JEAN
I love you, Rex.
Are you sure you love me?
REX
Am I sure!
You irresistible little-- [_Begins to kiss her.
Masculine triumph.
_ JEAN
And want to marry me, Rex?
REX
[_stops--startled--had not thought of that_] Why--er--of course.
What did you suppose!
[_Drops his eyes, sobered.
_ JEAN
[_feminine triumph_] And me "a penniless orphing"?
REX
[_fascinated by the way she says it, he laughs.
Then, his honor touched_] Why, what kind of a man do you take me for!
[_And wants her lips again.
_ JEAN
[_giving herself to him, head sinks upon his shoulder_] Then, oh, Rex, love me and be nice to me and--and take me away from all this!
[_She covers her face with her hands and sobs.
He pats her tenderly, with a manly look on his face.
_ _LUCY comes up from the garden.
She is dressed in white with a garden hat, a garden basket filled with flowers in one hand, long scissors in the other.
She is JOHN'S wife, the mistress of the house, sister-in-law to JEAN; conspicuously a "sweet" woman, affectedly so, a contrast with JEAN'S more modern, less delicate charm.
JEAN is frank and brave, LUCY indirect and timid, pretty but fading, forty but fighting it.
_ JEAN
[_laughing_] It's all right, Lucy--we're engaged!
LUCY
Well, I should hope so!
[_Shoots a look at JEAN, "So?"
_ REX
[_recovering himself_] I have often tried to thank you and good old John for letting me come over here so much, but now!
How can I _ever_ thank you?
See-what-I-mean?
LUCY
I'll tell you how.
Behave yourself after you are married to John's little sister.
JEAN
Rex, have you had a fearful past?
How fascinating!
REX
I'm going to have a glorious future, all right.
JEAN
Not unless you do as I tell you.
Going to obey me, Rex?
REX
You bet I am.
JEAN
Then begin now.
Go!...
Get out!
[_She pushes REX, laughing and protesting, toward the garden.
_] I want to tell Lucy how nice you are.
Run along over to the golf club, and by and by--if you _are_ a good boy--you can take me out in your new car.
[_REX kisses the hand on his arm and leaves, laughing.
_] My dear, he has five cars!
Thank you so much.
[_Alone, they throw off the mask worn before men.
_ LUCY
Now, deary, tell me all about it.
How did it happen?
JEAN
Oh, I simply followed your advice.
LUCY
Picked a quarrel with him?
JEAN
[_laughing_] Yes.
I pretended to believe in woman suffrage!
LUCY
Good!
They hate that.
JEAN
I told him all men were bullying brutes!
LUCY
They are!
And then you ran away?
JEAN
Of course.
LUCY
And he after you?
JEAN
Of course.
LUCY
And you let him catch you?
JEAN
Of cour--well ...
he caught me.
[_They both laugh.
_ LUCY
I can guess the rest.
JEAN
Why, it didn't take five minutes.
LUCY
And now it's to last through all eternity....
Isn't love wonderful?
JEAN
Um-hum.
Wonderful.
[_They begin to cull out the flowers.
_ LUCY
But you do love him, dear, don't you?
JEAN
[_arranging flowers_] I did then.
I don't now.
Why is that, Lucy?
LUCY
Oh, but you will learn to love him.
[_Jean shrugs, drops flowers, and turns away.
_] Now, now!
no worrying--it brings wrinkles!
[_Patting Jean's shoulder.
_] Rex is just the sort to give the woman he adores everything in the world.
JEAN
[_wriggling out of LUCY'S embrace_] I am not the woman he adores.
LUCY
Why, Jean!
He's engaged to you.
JEAN
But he's in love with my sister.
You know that as well as I do.
LUCY
[_uncomfortably_] Oh, well, he was once, but not now.
Men admire these independent women, but they don't marry them.
Nobody wants to marry a sexless freak with a scientific degree.
JEAN
Oh, what's the use, Lucy?
He's still wild about Helen, and she still laughs at him.
So you and John have trotted out the little sister.
Why not be honest about it.
LUCY
Well, I may be old-fashioned, but I don't think it's nice to talk this way when you're just engaged.
JEAN
Here comes your "sexless freak"--not with a degree, either.
LUCY
[_following JEAN'S gaze_] With a man!
JEAN
[_smiling_] With _my_ man.
[_HELEN, with REX bending toward her eagerly, appears.
She is a beautiful woman of twenty-nine, tall, strong, glorious--plenty of old-fashioned charm, despite her new-fashioned ideas.
She is dressed in a tennis costume and is swinging a racquet.
_ REX
But they told me you were going to stay abroad all winter.
HELEN
My work, Rex--I had to get back to work.
REX
Work!...
You are too good to work.
JEAN
[_amused, not jealous_] Is this your high-powered car, Rex?
Have you learned to run it yet?
REX
[_startled_] But ...
well ...
you see, I met Helen on the way.
See-what-I-mean?
JEAN
[_laughing_] Oh, we see.
REX
But I hadn't seen her for so long.
I thought--[_Looks from HELEN to JEAN_] ...
wait, I'll get the car.
[_He hurries off.
_ LUCY
[_to JEAN_] Why couldn't she have stayed abroad!
JEAN
Helen, don't talk about your work before Lucy--it shocks her.
HELEN
Oh, very well; make it my 'career'!
JEAN
[_arm around HELEN_] Sssh!
--that's worse.
LUCY
Helen, dear, I deem it my duty to tell you that you are being talked about.
HELEN
Lucy, dear, do you always find your true happiness in duty?
LUCY
Well, if you think you are going back to that horrid place again ...
after what happened that night?
John won't hear of it.
HELEN
If the Baker Institute of Medical Experiment is not a respectable place you should make John resign as trustee.
[_She laughs it off.
_ LUCY
John is trustee of--oh, nearly everything.
That makes it all the worse.
It isn't as if you had to work.
HELEN
Oh, but John is so rich now, his credit can stand it.
And you oughtn't to mind!
Why, some of our most fashionable families now contain freaks like me.
It's becoming quite smart, just as in former days one of the sons would go into the Church or the navy.
LUCY
Well, of course, I am old-fashioned, but going down-town every day with the men,--it seems so unwomanly.
HELEN
But wasn't I womanly for years?
Instead of going down-town and working with highbrows, I stayed up-town and played with lowbrows--until I was bored to death.
LUCY
[_sighs_] Yes, that's what comes of going to college, leaving the home, getting these new ideas.
All the same, Helen, the men, really nice men, don't like it.
HELEN
Well, you see, I don't like really nice men, so that makes it agreeable all around.
LUCY
If it were only art or music or something feminine, but that awful laboratory!
How can a lady poison poor, innocent little monkeys?
HELEN
If I were a lady I'd _dine_ with monkeys....
Do you know what the word means, Lucy?
In Anglo-Saxon times "lady" meant "one who gives loaves";
now, one who _takes_ a loaf.
LUCY
Very clever, my dear, but some day you'll be sorry.
No man, Helen, likes a woman to have independent views.
JEAN
Helen can afford to have independent views; she has an independent income--she earns it.
LUCY
Independent income!
Her salary wouldn't pay for your hats.
JEAN
All the same, I wish I had gone to college; I wish I had learned a profession.
LUCY
What have these New Women accomplished?
Just one thing: they are destroying chivalry!
HELEN
Not entirely, Lucy, not entirely.
For instance, I am the best assistant Ernest Hamilton has, but the worst paid; the others are all men.
Hurray for chivalry!
LUCY
Well, I'm just an old-fashioned wife.
