The Second Mrs. Tanqueray Arthur W. Pinero (free children's online books txt) đ
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me leave to write. Returning to the writing-table. Ring for what you want, like a good fellow!
Aubrey resumes his writing.
Misquith
To Drummle. Still, the fish and cutlet remain unexplained.
Drummle
Oh, the poor old woman was so weak that I insisted upon her taking some food, and felt there was nothing for it but to sit down opposite her. The fool! the blackguard!
Misquith
Poor Orreyed! Well, heâs gone under for a time.
Drummle
For a time! My dear Frank, I tell you he has absolutely ceased to be. Aubrey, who has been writing busily, turns his head towards the speakers and listens. His lips are set, and there is a frown upon his face. For all practical purposes you may regard him as the late George Orreyed. Tomorrow the very characteristics of his speech, as we remember them, will have become obsolete.
Jayne
But surely, in the course of years, he and his wife will outliveâ â
Drummle
No, no, doctor, donât try to upset one of my settled beliefs. You may dive into many waters, but there is one social Dead Seaâ â!
Jayne
Perhaps youâre right.
Drummle
Right! Good God! I wish you could prove me otherwise! Why, for years Iâve been sitting, and watching and waiting.
Misquith
Youâre in form tonight, Cayley. May we ask where youâve been in the habit of squandering your useful leisure?
Drummle
Where? On the shore of that same sea.
Misquith
And, pray, what have you been waiting for?
Drummle
For some of my best friends to come up. Aubrey utters a half-stifled exclamation of impatience; then he hurriedly gathers up his papers from the writing-table. The three men turn to him. Eh?
Aubrey
Oh, Iâ âIâll finish my letters in the other room if youâll excuse me for five minutes. Tell Cayley the news.
He goes out.
Drummle
Hurrying to the door. My dear fellow, my jabbering has disturbed you! Iâll never talk again as long as I live!
Misquith
Close the door, Cayley.
Drummle shuts the door.
Jayne
Cayleyâ â
Drummle
Advancing to the dinner table. A smoke, a smoke, or I perish!
Selects a cigar from the little cabinet.
Jayne
Cayley, marriages are in the air.
Drummle
Are they? Discover the bacillus, doctor, and destroy it.
Jayne
I mean, among our friends.
Drummle
Oh, Nugent Warrinderâs engagement to Lady Alice Tring. Iâve heard of that. Theyâre not to be married till the spring.
Jayne
Another marriage that concerns us a little takes place tomorrow.
Drummle
Whose marriage?
Jayne
Aubreyâs.
Drummle
Aubâ â! Looking towards Misquith. Is it a joke?
Misquith
No.
Drummle
Looking from Misquith to Jayne. To whom?
Misquith
He doesnât tell us.
Jayne
We three were asked here tonight to receive the announcement. Aubrey has some theory that marriage is likely to alienate a man from his friends, and it seems to me he has taken the precaution to wish us goodbye.
Misquith
No, no.
Jayne
Practically, surely.
Drummle
Thoughtfully. Marriage in general, does he mean, or this marriage?
Jayne
Thatâs the point. Frank saysâ â
Misquith
No, no, no; I feared it suggestedâ â
Jayne
Well, well. To Drummle. What do you think of it?
Drummle
After a slight pause. Is there a light there? Lighting his cigar. Heâ âwraps the ladyâ âin mysteryâ âyou say?
Misquith
Most modestly.
Drummle
Aubreyâsâ ânotâ âa veryâ âyoung man.
Jayne
Forty-three.
Drummle
Ah! Lâage critique!
Misquith
A dangerous ageâ âyes, yes.
Drummle
When you two fellows go home, do you mind leaving me behind here?
Misquith
Not at all.
Jayne
By all means.
Drummle
All right. Anxiously. Deuce take it, the manâs second marriage mustnât be another mistake!
With his head bent he walks up to the fireplace.
Jayne
You knew him in his short married life, Cayley. Terribly unsatisfactory, wasnât it?
Drummle
Wellâ âLooking at the door. I quite closed that door?
Misquith
Yes.
Settles himself on the sofa; Jayne is seated in an armchair.
Drummle
Smoking, with his back to the fire. He married a Miss Herriott; that was in the year eighteenâ âconfound datesâ âtwenty years ago. She was a lovely creatureâ âby Jove, she was; by religion a Roman Catholic. She was one of your cold sort, you knowâ âall marble arms and black velvet. I remember her with painful distinctness as the only woman who ever made me nervous.
Misquith
Ha, ha!
Drummle
He loved herâ âto distraction, as they say. Jupiter, how fervently that poor devil courted her! But I donât believe she allowed him even to squeeze her fingers. She was an iceberg! As for kissing, the mere contact would have given him chapped lips. However, he married her and took her away, the latter greatly to my relief.
Jayne
Abroad, you mean?
Drummle
Eh? Yes. I imagine he gratified her by renting a villa in Lapland, but I donât know. After a while they returned, and then I saw how woefully Aubrey had miscalculated results.
Jayne
Miscalculatedâ â?
Drummle
He had reckoned, poor wretch, that in the early days of marriage she would thaw. But she didnât. I used to picture him closing his doors and making up the fire in the hope of seeing her features relax. Bless her, the thaw never set in! I believe she kept a thermometer in her stays and always registered ten degrees below zero. However, in time a child cameâ âa daughter.
Jayne
Didnât thatâ â?
Drummle
Not a bit of it; it made matters worse. Frightened at her failure to stir up in him some sympathetic religious belief, she determined upon strong measures with regard to the child. He opposed her for a miserable year or so, but she wore him down, and the insensible little brat was placed in a convent, first in France, then in Ireland. Not long afterwards the mother died, strangely enough, of fever, the only warmth, I believe, that ever came to that womanâs body.
Misquith
Donât, Cayley!
Jayne
The child is living, we know.
Drummle
Yes, if you choose to call it living. Miss Tanquerayâ âa young woman of nineteen nowâ âis in the Loretto convent at Armagh. She professes to have found her true vocation in a religious life, and within a month or two will take final vows.
Misquith
He ought to have removed his daughter from the convent when the
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