University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Chorus.
Shall not a woman insulted have her revenge on the man,
Mock at him, laugh at his anguish, smite with what weapon she can,
Cut where the wound shall be quickest, smile as he writhes in the dust,
Mirthful when he comes a-begging an obolus now, or a crust?
Does not the feeling of injury strike out seeking redress?
And why should the gods plant in her a passion she is to repress?
They know their business, and did not fashion our nature to be
A soft-hearted, soft-headed, milk-and-water philanthropy;
There's a hard grit in it, meant for use at the fitting time,
That rogues and villains may know the bitter bad taste of crime.—
Oh, be gentle and meek, and kiss the hand hot from the blow,
And stint your soul of the pleasure, the keenest of all that we know!
Drive the winds over the ocean, yet say to the mad waves, Peace!
Why should you lift up your heads now? there, let your murmurings cease!
Easy to say, Forgive, and lay up your wrath on the shelf:
But how, if you take it so tamely, shall you respect yourself?
If you're a worm to be trod on, trod on you shall be again;
Never a woman insipid found chivalrous spirit in men.—
So did the wild heart brood now, passioning so in her wrath,
And plotted to sweep her victim ruthlessly out of her path.

Scene—Room in Cairn-Cailleach. Tremain and Doris.
Doris.
Well, sir, what think you of this gear?

Tremain.
Think, Doris!
I am past thinking: there's a social earthquake
Shaking my world, and toppling all things down,
While darkness reigns, and mystery, and silence.
What does it mean? There's Diarmid, on a sudden,
Off like the swallows, with no fare-you-well,
And leaving no more trace than flight of bird
Through the impassive air; his mother packing
To follow him, and not a word to explain,
But Celtic exclamations all day long.

Doris.
So he is gone already.

Tremain.
Ay, he's gone;
But why and whither has he gone, and left
His guest to seek for other quarters, just
When one was taking to the place, and felt
Its strangeness, which at first was like a dream,
Growing familiar, with a taste of life
Fresh as the salt sea breezes?

Doris.
Gone already!
I did not count on that. And she's off too,
After him, doubtless. Much help I have got
From your fine phrases, sir. At every point
Baffled and mocked! I'm weary of you all,
But I will have revenge at least.

Tremain.
What's all
This rage about? It is a pretty play,
And it becomes you rarely, as indeed
All that you do becomes you; yet I like
My Doris tender more than Doris fierce,
Although the softness is more beautiful
By reason of the wrath restrained.

Doris
Pshaw! give me
Deeds and not words: I've had enough of them!
You were to get that girl out of my way.

Tremain.
And out of it she is: well for herself
I daresay.

Doris.
But not well for you, that she
Should drive off like a princess, followed by
The prayers and tears of all her subjects here—
The cripples, the rheumatics, and the idiots,
Who burden this poor land.

Tremain.
Why ill for me?
She has not left a legacy of these
Impotent folk to me.

Doris.
That's as you will.
But he who should have humbled, broken her,
And cast her from him as a thing of naught—
Well, him I could have loved; I hate her so.

Tremain.
And yet you went to see her lately.

Doris.
Yes;
I went because I had no man to go,
And do mine errand, and to smite her with
A word should blight her life, and break her heart,
As I had hoped it would. But with the look
Of a grand tragedy-queen she bade me be
A dutiful wife, forsooth, to my affianced,
And wear with grace what I had won by guile.

Tremain.
Affianced, Doris! am I then to take
This ring from your fair finger, and put mine
Here in its room?

Doris.
You take my ring from me!
Sir Diarmid's ring!—yes, his engagement ring!
I'd sooner part with life than part with it.

Tremain.
What do you mean?

Doris.
Oh, I forgot. You know not
The pretty silly farce we have been playing,
Which is to end in fateful tragedy.
Diarmid came here one day, insulting me
With offer of his hand, but not his heart—
A mere wired flower to wither on my bosom—
Hoping to be refused, and keep his lands
And sweetheart too, because he heard I loved you.
As if I could not see through such a thin
Shallow device, which he did hardly colour
With any show of likelihood!

Tremain.
Of course
You did refuse him?

Doris.
No; but at a word
Frankly accepted him on his own terms;—
Hands without hearts, vows that were lies avowed.
Would you have had me do the very thing
He hoped that I would do, and strip myself
Of all my rights that he might wed that girl?

Tremain.
Well; you accepted only as a ruse—
My clever Doris—meaning, by and by,
To wreck his hope more wholly.

Doris.
Not at all.
You poets, oh, how little do you know
The women, after all, you're fain to paint!
You see their eyes and hair, and hear their words:
But for their minds they are too fine for you.
Men's brains, I think, can have no convolutions,
They go at things so straight and stupid, like
A gaze-hound at a doubling hare.

Tremain.
Nay, Doris,
You could not surely throw away my love.

Doris.
Why should I throw away your love, because
I take an offer offering no love?
Should I not need, and prize it all the more,
That it would give me what my fate denied?
I've heard you say that love is poetry,
And marriage languid prose that never stirs
The pulse of high imagination, having
No passionate music in it. I must have
Some poetry in my life, and you could give it.

Tremain.
Yes! So! Like verses in a magazine,
I might come in to fill a space, a blank,
Between the story and the criticism;
Not even like the Chorus in the Greek
Drama, to fill the passion up, and cry
To the stern fates for pity. Thank you, Doris,
But love like mine will hardly serve for padding.

Doris.
What ails you now? A badly written book
May have its very essence and its life
In the appendix. And my life without you
Were dull enough with him.

Tremain.
You did not mean, then,
To marry him really.

Doris.
Indeed I did, and would;
I should have made his life a misery
Perhaps, and seen him bitterly repent
His dirty bargain; since we both agreed
To join our hands, and keep our hearts apart.
And really I did mean it.

Tremain.
Beautiful tigress!

Doris.
Tigress, if you will; but who has lost
Her spring, and turns more savage on her prey.
Look here. I will not hide a thing from you:
We sealed our bargain by exchange of rings,
And other pretty customary forms
Of kindness and affiance; and straight-way
He hurried to that girl who set him on
To break his plighted troth: contented she
To take him in the shame of such dishonour.

Tremain.
How know you that?

Doris.
How do I know it? Why,
I found them closeted together, heard
His own false lips renounce the vow he made
An hour before. Oh, he was most polite—
My gentleman! and did his villain-work
Like preaching; for of course he had been schooled,
How best to lay the moral varnish on,
And spout fine sentiment. I hate sentiment;
It is the flimsiest lie that walks the earth,
The mere thin ghost of truth. He must admit
With shame, forsooth, his offer was an insult,
And as an insult humbly he withdrew it:
He would not mock a lady with the boon,
If boon it could be called, of loveless marriage:
But frankly he had hoped I would reject it,
Which now he was ashamed of like the rest.
The moral prig! as if I did not know
Where he had learnt his lesson!

Tremain.
So he parted
With house and lands and honours all for love.

Doris.
And you too! You take up the tragic style
To glorify a fool!

Tremain.
Yes, for I could
Give all the world, too, just to win your love.

Doris.
Not long ago you said I was a tigress.

Tremain.
Even so; a grand and proud and terrible beauty,
A matchless strength of passion good or evil,
Like a volcano, having on its slopes
Fair vineyards here, there burning lava-floods.
And howsoe'er you show, you do transfix
My soul with admiration.

Doris.
Oh! Perhaps
You think my fires have burnt up Diarmid's share,
And now the sunny slopes are for your vines.

Tremain.
Why not? You know that poets always were
Alike the favourites of the gods and demons;
And he is gone whom you did never love,
While I am here whom you have said you loved.
What then will you do next?

Doris.
I will pull down
Each stone of that old house, and scatter all
The gatherings of ages—pictures, tapestries,
Arms, chinas, books, and nick-nacks, every heirloom
And symbol of their greatness, sending them
Where never can he hope by any chance
To pick them up again: and then I'll make
A forest of the place, and stalk the deer
Over his threshold.

Tremain.
You are thorough, Doris.

Doris.
Ay! he shall find that, who has flouted me.

Tremain.
Where is he now?

Doris.
Nay, you should know that best.

Tremain.
I know not. There is only Celtic wailing
All through the house, and I have found a shelter
Down in the village.

Doris.
He is gone at least;
And she, too, is away—perhaps with him.

Tremain.
Nay, she went with her uncle yester eve;
I saw her go, and thought her looking pale.

Doris.
Oh yes! you take a mighty interest,
Like others, in her movements and her looks!
Perhaps, too, you are fain to sacrifice—
If you have any such to offer up—
Houses and lands and honour for her love.
By all means do: you have my full consent
To play the fool as he did.

Tremain.
I could play
The fool indeed like him, but not for her:
I think I am even more a fool than he,
Clinging as for dear life to one who bids me
Go seek another love. You know well, Doris,
'Tis easy saying to the captive, Go,
When he is bound and fettered.

Doris.
My poor boy,
Are you so deep enthralled? But what was that
You said about an uncle? She has none.
Her father had a brother once in India
Was something to my father—agent, factor—
What not?—a scant-o'-grace and ne'er-do-well.
But he is dead, oh, years and years ago.

Tremain.
I tell but what I heard. Some one at least
Carried her off last night. I saw them go;
They said he was her uncle. Enough of her.
I know not why you should so hate her, Doris,
Or so hate anything. 'Tis so much better
To love, which sweetens all things like a flower.

Doris.
Ay! better truly for your sluggish souls,
Which, like your English rivers, creep along
Oily and dull and muddy. But for me
My love is hotter than can boil in your
Slow veins, and yet I hate more heartily
Than I can love.

Tremain.
When shall I call you mine,
Doris? Then you shall see how I can love.

Doris.
Why, that you call me twenty times a day.

Tremain.
Nay, do not trifle. Let us fix the time,
Since there is nought to come between us now.

Doris.
Oh, fixing times is stupid. I should hate
The day I fixed, and change it in a week.
Or, when it came, should keep my bed, and sleep
Its hours away, unnoted. But I thought
You were content to love, and held that marriage
Was like the lump of ice in the champagne,
Cooling and weakening passion.

Tremain.
Then I knew not
The agony and ecstasy of love,
The rapture and the misery of hope,
The jealous watching through the troubled nights,
And sinking of the heart. Say when.

Doris.
I cannot.
Maybe a year hence I may settle in
The dull jog-trot of marriage—may-be never.
Who knows what is to happen? I'm content
Meanwhile that things should go on as they do.

Tremain.
You cannot love like me, then.

Doris.
Go away!
I cannot babble sentiment, and coin
My heart into a ballad to be sold
To publishers, and sung by silly maids.
And if you are not satisfied with that
Which I can give you, there are lots of girls
Will lend their ears to hear your dainty speeches,
And even to believe them—they're such fools.

[Exit.
Chorus.