Cæsar's Wife: A Comedy in Three Acts. Maugham William Somerset

he always has.

Mrs. Appleby

      Mr. Appleby was saying only this morning he was the last man one would expect to marry in haste.

Violet

      Let's hope he won't repent at leisure.

Anne

      [Smiling.] Mrs. Appleby is dying to know all about it, Violet.

Mrs. Appleby

      I'm an old woman, Lady Little.

Violet

      [Gaily.] Well, I met Arthur at a week-end party. He'd come home on leave and all sorts of important people had been asked to meet him. I was frightened out of my life. The duchesses had strawberry leaves hanging all over them and they looked at me down their noses. And the Cabinet Ministers' wives had protruding teeth and they looked at me up their noses.

Anne

      What nonsense you talk, Violet!

Violet

      I was expecting to be terrified of Arthur. After all, I knew he was a great man. But you know, I wasn't a bit. He was inclined to be rather fatherly at first, so I cheeked him.

Anne

      I can imagine his surprise. No one had done that for twenty years.

Violet

      When you know Arthur at all well you discover that when he wants anything he doesn't hesitate to ask for it. He told our hostess that he wanted me to sit next to him at dinner. That didn't suit her at all, but she didn't like to say no. Somehow people don't say no to Arthur. The Cabinet Ministers' wives looked more like camels than ever, and by Sunday evening, my dear, the duchesses' strawberry leaves began to curl and crackle.

Anne

      Your poor hostess, I feel for her. To have got hold of a real lion for your party and then have him refuse to bother himself with anybody but a chit of a girl whom you'd asked just to make an even number!

Mrs. Appleby

      He just fell in love with you at first sight?

Violet

      That's what he says now.

Mrs. Appleby

      Did you know?

Violet

      I thought it looked very like it, you know, only it was so improbable. Then came an invitation from a woman I only just knew for the next week-end, and she said Arthur would be there. Then my heart really did begin to go pit-a-pat. I took the letter in to my sister and sat on her bed and we talked it over. "Does he mean to propose to me," I said, "or does he not?" And my sister said: "I can't imagine what he sees in you. Will you accept him if he does?" she asked. "Oh, no," I said. "Good heavens, why he's twenty years older than I am!" But of course I meant to all the time. I shouldn't have cared if he was a hundred, he was the most wonderful man I'd ever known.

Mrs. Appleby

      And did he propose to you that week-end, when he'd practically only seen you once before?

Violet

      I got down in the afternoon and he was there already. As soon as I swallowed a cup of tea he said: "Come out for a walk." Well, I'd have loved a second cup, but I didn't like to say so, so I went. But we had a second tea in a cottage half an hour later, and we were engaged then.

      [Appleby comes in with Osman Pasha. Mr. Appleby is a self-made man who has entered Parliament; he is about sixty, grey-bearded, rather short and stout, with some accent in his speech, shrewd, simple and good-natured. He wears a blue serge suit. Osman Pasha is a swarthy, bearded Oriental, obese, elderly but dignified; he wears the official frock-coat of the Khedivial service and a tarbush.]

Appleby

      Sir Arthur is coming in one moment. He is talking to one of his secretaries.

Violet

      Really, it's too bad of them not to leave him alone even when he's snatching a mouthful of food.

Osman Pasha

      Vous permettez que j'apporte ma cigarette, chère Madame.

Violet

      Of course. Come and sit here, Pasha.

Appleby

      I wanted to tell his Excellency how interested I am in his proposal to found a technical college in Cairo, but I can't speak French.

Violet

      Oh, but his Excellency understands English perfectly, and I believe really he talks it as well as I do, only he won't.

Osman Pasha

      Madame, je ne comprends l'anglais que quand vous le parlez, et tout galant homme sait ce que dit une jolie femme.

Anne

      [Translating for the Applebys.] He says he only understands English when Lady Little speaks it, and every nice man understands what a pretty woman says.

Violet

      No one pays me such charming compliments as you do. You know I'm learning Arabic.

Osman Pasha

      C'est une bien belle langue, et vous, madame, vous avez autant d'intelligence que de beauté.

Violet

      I have a Copt who comes to me every day. And I practise a little with your brother, Anne.

Anne

      [To Mrs. Appleby.] My brother is one of Sir Arthur's secretaries. I expect it was he that Mr. Appleby left with Sir Arthur.

Violet

      If it is I shall scold him. He knows quite well that he has no right to come and bother Arthur when he's in the bosom of his family. But they say he's a wonderful Arabic scholar.

Osman Pasha

      Vous parlez de M. Parry? Je n'ai jamais connu un Anglais qui avait une telle facilité.

Anne

      He says he's never known an Englishman who speaks so well as Ronny.

Violet

      It's a fearfully difficult language. Sometimes my head seems to get tied up in knots.

      [Two Saises come in, one with a salver on which are coffee cups and the other bearing a small tray on which is a silver vessel containing Turkish coffee. They go round giving coffee to the various people, then wait in silence. When Sir Arthur comes in they give him his coffee and go out.]

Anne

      It's wonderful of you to persevere.

Violet

      Oh, you know, Ronny's very encouraging. He says I'm really getting on. I want so badly to be able to talk. You can't think how enthusiastic I am about Egypt. I love it.

Osman Pasha

      Pas plus que l'Égypte vous aime, Madame.

Violet

      When we landed at Alexandria and I saw that blue sky and that coloured, gesticulating crowd, my heart leapt. I knew I was going to be happy. And every day I've loved Egypt more. I love its antiquities, I love the desert and the streets of Cairo and those dear little villages by the Nile. I never knew there was such beauty in the world. I thought you only read of romance in books; I didn't know there was a country where it sat by the side of a well under the palm-trees, as though it were at home.

Osman Pasha

      Vous êtes charmante, madame. C'est un bien beau pays. Il n'a besoin que d'une chose pour qu'on puisse y vivre.

Anne

      [Translating.] It's a beautiful country. It only wants one thing to make it livable. And what is that, your Excellency?

Osman Pasha

      La liberté.

Appleby

      Liberty?

      [Arthur has come in when first Violet begins to speak of Egypt and he listens to her enthusiasm with an indulgent smile. At the Pasha's remark he comes forward. Arthur Little is a man of forty-five, alert, young in manner, very intelligent, with the urbanity, self-assurance, tact, and resourcefulness of the experienced diplomatist. Nothing escapes him, but he does not often show how much he notices.]

Arthur

      Egypt has the liberty to do well, your Excellency. Does it need the liberty to do ill before it loses the inclination to do it?

Violet

      [To Mrs. Appleby.] I hope you don't mind Turkish coffee?

Mrs. Appleby

      Oh, no, I like it.

Violet

      I'm so glad. I think it perfectly delicious.

Arthur

      You