Part 2

THE YOUNG MAN

I'll show you what good you can do now. Come here! (_The Agent approaches_) Can you unloose my hands from those of this young woman?

THE YOUNG WOMAN

(_haughtily releasing herself and walking away_) You needn't trouble! I can do it myself.

THE YOUNG MAN

Thank you. It was utterly beyond my power. (_To the Agent_) Will you kindly take hold of me and move me over _there_? (_The Agent propels him away from the girl_) Thank you. At this distance I can perhaps make my farewell in a seemly and innocuous manner.

THE AGENT

Young man, you will not say farewell to that young lady for ten days--and perhaps never!

THE YOUNG WOMAN

What!

THE AGENT

They have arranged it all.

THE YOUNG MAN

_Who_ has arranged _what_?

THE AGENT

Your aunt, Miss Brooke--and (_to the young woman_) your uncle, Mr. Egerton--(_The young people turn and stare at each other in amazement._)

THE YOUNG MAN

Egerton! Are you Helen Egerton?

HELEN

And are you George Brooke?

THE AGENT

Your aunt and uncle have just discovered each other up at the house, and they have arranged for you all to take dinner together to-night, and then go to a ten-day house-party at Mr. Egerton's place on Long Island. (_Grimly_) The reason of all this will be plain to you. They want you two to get married.

GEORGE

Then we're done for! We'll have to get married now whether we want to or not!

HELEN

What! Just to please _them_? I shan't do it!

GEORGE (_gloomily_)

You don't know my Aunt Maria.

HELEN

And Tubby will try to bully me, I suppose. But I won't do it--no matter what he says!

THE AGENT

Pardon what may seem an impertinence, Miss; but is it really true that you don't want to marry this young man?

HELEN (_flaming_)

I suppose because you saw me in his arms--! Oh, I want to, all right, but--

THE AGENT (_mildly_)

Then what seems to be the trouble?

HELEN

I--oh, you explain to him, George. (_She goes to the bench and, sits down._)

GEORGE

Well, it's this way. As you may have deduced from what you saw, we are madly in love with each other--

HELEN

(_from the bench_) But I'm not madly in love with municipal ownership. That's the chief difficulty.

GEORGE

No, the chief difficulty is that I refuse to entertain even a platonic affection for the tango.

HELEN (_irritably_)

I told you the tango had gone out long ago!

GEORGE

Well, then, the maxixe.

HELEN

Stupid!

GEORGE

And there you have it! No doubt it seems ridiculous to you.

THE AGENT (_gravely_)

Not at all, my boy. I've known marriage to go to smash on far less than that. When you come to think of it, a taste for dancing and a taste for municipal ownership stand at the two ends of the earth away from each other. They represent two different ways of taking life. And if two people who live in the same house can't agree on those two things, they'd disagree on ten thousand things that came up every day. And what's the use for two different kinds of beings to try to live together? It doesn't work, no matter how much love there is between them.

GEORGE

(_rushing up to him in surprise and gratification, and shaking his hand warmly_) Then you're our friend. You will help us not to get married!

THE AGENT

Your aunt is very set on it--and your uncle, too, Miss!

HELEN

We must find some way to get out of it, or they'll have us cooped up together in that house before we know it. (_Rising and coming over to the Agent_) Can't you think up some scheme?

THE AGENT

Perhaps I can, and perhaps I can't. I'm a bachelor myself, Miss, and that means that I've thought up many a scheme to get out of marriage myself.

HELEN (_outraged_)

You old scoundrel!

THE AGENT

Oh, it's not so bad as you may think, Miss. I've always gone through the marriage ceremony to please them. But that's not what I call marriage.

GEORGE

Then what do you call marriage?

HELEN

Yes, I'd like to know!

THE AGENT

Marriage, my young friends, is an iniquitous arrangement devised by the Devil himself for driving all the love out of the hearts of lovers. They start out as much in love with each other as you two are to-day, and they end by being as sick of the sight of each other as you two will be twenty years hence if I don't find a way of saving you alive out of the Devil's own trap. It's not lack of love that's the trouble with marriage--it's marriage itself. And when I say marriage, I don't mean promising to love, honor, and obey, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health till death do you part--that's only human nature to wish and to attempt. And it might be done if it weren't for the iniquitous arrangement of marriage.

GEORGE (_puzzled_)

But what _is_ the iniquitous arrangement?

THE AGENT

Ah, that's the trouble! If I tell you, you won't believe me. You'll go ahead and try it out, and find out what all the unhappy ones have found out before you. Listen to me, my children. Did you ever go on a picnic? (_He looks from one to the other--they stand astonished and silent_) Of course you have. Everyone has. There is an instinct in us which makes us go back to the ways of our savage ancestors--to gather about a fire in the forest, to cook meat on a pointed stick, and eat it with our fingers. But how many books would you write, young man, if you had to go back to the camp-fire every day for your lunch? And how many new dances would _you_ invent if you lived eternally in the picnic stage of civilization? No! the picnic is incompatible with everyday living. As incompatible as marriage.

GEORGE

But--

HELEN

But--

THE AGENT

Marriage is the nest-building instinct, turned by the Devil himself into an institution to hold the human soul in chains. The whole story of marriage is told in the old riddle: "Why do birds in their nests agree? Because if they don't, they'll fall out." That's it. Marriage is a nest so small that there is no room in it for disagreement. Now it may be all right for birds to agree, but human beings are not built that way. They disagree, and home becomes a little hell. Or else they do agree, at the expense of the soul's freedom stifled in one or both.

HELEN

Yes, but tell me--

GEORGE

Ssh!

THE AGENT

Yet there _is_ the nest-building instinct. You feel it, both of you. If you don't now, you will as soon as you are married. If you are fools, you will try to live all your lives in a love-nest; and you will imprison your souls within it, and the Devil will laugh.

HELEN

(_to George_) I am beginning to be afraid of him.

GEORGE

So am I.

THE AGENT

If you are wise, you will build yourselves a little nest secretly in the woods, away from civilization, and you will run away together to that nest whenever you are in the mood. A nest so small that it will hold only two beings and one thought--the thought of love. And then you will come back refreshed to civilization, where every soul is different from every other soul--you will let each other alone, forget each other, and do your own work in peace. Do you understand?

HELEN

He means we should occupy separate sides of the house, I think. Or else that we should live apart and only see each other on week-ends. I'm not sure which.

THE AGENT (_passionately_)

I mean that you should not stifle love with civilization, nor encumber civilization with love. What have they to do with each other? You think you want a fellow student of economics. You are wrong. _You_ think you want a dancing partner. You are mistaken. You want a revelation of the glory of the universe.

HELEN

(_to George, confidentially_) It's blithering nonsense, of course. But it _was_ something like that--a while ago.

GEORGE (_bewilderedly_)

Yes; when we knew it was our first kiss and thought it was to be our last.

THE AGENT (_fiercely_)

A kiss is always the first kiss and the last--or it is nothing.

HELEN (_conclusively_)

He's quite mad.

GEORGE

Absolutely.

THE AGENT

Mad? Of course I am mad. But--(_He turns suddenly, and subsides as a man in a guard's uniform enters._)

THE GUARD

Ah, here you are! Thought you'd given us the slip, did you? (_To the others_) Escaped from the Asylum, he did, a week ago, and got a job here. We've been huntin' him high and low. Come along now!

GEORGE

(_recovering with difficulty the power of speech_) What--what's the matter with him?

THE GUARD

Matter with him? He went crazy, he did, readin' the works of Bernard Shaw. And if he wasn't in the insane asylum he'd be in jail. He's a bigamist, he is. He married fourteen women. But none of 'em would go on the witness stand against him. Said he was an ideal husband, they did. Fourteen of 'em! But otherwise he's perfectly harmless. Come now!

THE AGENT (_pleasantly_)

Perfectly harmless! Yes, perfectly harmless! (_He is led out._)

HELEN

That explains it all!

GEORGE

Yes--and yet I feel there was something in what he was saying.

HELEN

Well--are we going to get married or not? We've got to decide that before we face my uncle and your aunt.

GEORGE

Of course we'll get married. You have your work and I mine, and--

HELEN

Well, if we do, then you can't have that sunny south room for a study. I want it for the nursery.

GEORGE

The nursery!

HELEN

Yes; babies, you know!

GEORGE

Good heavens!

[CURTAIN]

MORE SHORT PLAYS

BY MARY MACMILLAN

Plays that act well may read well. Miss MacMillan's Plays are good reading. Nor is literary excellence a detriment to dramatic performance.

This volume contains eight Plays:

_His Second Girl._ One-act comedy, just before the Civil War. Interior, 45 minutes. Three women, three men.

_At the Church Door._ Fantastic farce, one act, 20 to 30 minutes. Interior. Present. Two women, two men.

_Honey._ Four short acts. Present, in the southern mountains. Same interior cabin scene throughout. Three women, one man, two girls.

_The Dress Rehearsal of Hamlet._ One-act costume farce. Present. Interior. Forty-five minutes. Ten women taking men's parts.

_The Pioneers._ Five very short acts. 1791 in Middle-West. Interior. Four men, five women, five children, five Indians.

_In Mendelesia, Part I._ Costume play, Middle Ages. Interior. Thirty minutes or more. Four women, one man-servant.

_In Mendelesia, Part II._ Modern realism of same plot. One act. Present. Interior. Thirty minutes. Four women, one maid-servant.

_The Dryad._ Fantasy in free verse, one act. Thirty minutes. Outdoors. Two women, one man. Present.

These plays, as well as SHORT PLAYS, have been presented by clubs and schools in Boston, New York, Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland, New Orleans, San Francisco, etc., and by the Portmanteau Theatre, the Chicago Art Institute Theatre, the Denver Little Art Theatre, at Carmel-by-the-Sea in California, etc.

_Handsomely bound and uniform with S. & K. Dramatic Series. 12mo. Cloth. Net, $2.50; 3/4 Turkey Morocco, Net, $8.50._

STEWART & KIDD COMPANY

Publishers Cincinnati, U. S. A.

Stewart Kidd Modern Plays

Edited by Frank Shay

To meet the immensely increased demands of the play-reading public and those interested in the modern drama, Stewart & Kidd Company are issuing under the general editorship of Frank Shay a series of plays from the pens of the world's best contemporary writers. No effort is being spared to secure the best work available, and the plays are issued in a form that is at once attractive to readers and suited to the needs of the performer and producer.

From time to time special announcements will be printed giving complete lists of the Plays. Those announced thus far are:

SHAM, a Social Satire in One Act.

By Frank G. Tompkins.

Originally produced by Sam Hume, at the Arts and Crafts Theatre, Detroit.

THE SHEPHERD IN THE DISTANCE,

a Pantomime in One Act. By Holland Hudson.

Originally produced by the Washington Square Players.

MANSIONS, a Play in One Act.

By Hildegarde Flanner.

Originally produced by the Indiana Little Theatre Society.

HEARTS TO MEND, a Fantasy in One Act.

By H. A. Overstreet.

Originally produced by the Fireside Players, White Plains, N. Y.

_Others to follow._

_Bound in Art Paper. Each net 50 cents._

* * * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Obvious punctuation errors and misprints have been corrected.