ISABEL. Sit down. MRS. FALCINGTON. Than...

ISABEL. Sit down.

MRS. FALCINGTON. Thank you. I will. (She does so.) Harold is out?

ISABEL. Yes. (A pause) Getting brioches for breakfast. (A pause) You look tired. Won't you have some coffee? It's ready.

MRS. FALCINGTON. Thank you. Yes.

Both the women give an impression of timid courage.

ISABEL. (pouring the coffee) He ought to be back soon. He talked of getting lost in the crooked streets of the Village, and I'm afraid that's what has happened to him.

MRS. FALCINGTON. Yes. Harold is all at sea in a strange place.

She takes the coffee and sips it.

ISABEL. Tell me—how did you know?

MRS. FALCINGTON. (smiling) Private detectives.

ISABEL. (a little shocked) Oh!

MRS. FALCINGTON. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not going to make any trouble…. But I did want to know what became of him.

ISABEL. Yes … naturally.

MRS. FALCINGTON. And then—you see, I wanted to know what you were like; and—and whether he was happy with you. I don't think detectives are very intelligent. They couldn't get it into their heads that I wanted the truth. They gave me a—a very lurid account of—of you. And of course Harold's letters gave me no help. So I came down to see for myself.

ISABEL. (rising) Mrs. Falcington: here is a letter that Harold was writing this morning. It tells about me—and I fancy you won't find it so essentially different from the detectives' account. Read it and see.

MRS. FALCINGTON. (reading the letter) He says he loves you.

ISABEL. In those words?

MRS. FALCINGTON. No—he says he is involved in a strange and sudden infatuation. But it means the same thing.

ISABEL. No it doesn't. He isn't in love with me. I'll tell you straight—he's in love with you.

MRS. FALCINGTON. How do you know?

ISABEL. From the letters he wrote you.

MRS. FALCINGTON. Oh! He showed them to you, did he? How like him!

ISABEL. But he is in love with you. And he isn't happy with me.

MRS. FALCINGTON. Why not?

ISABEL. He hates this kind of life. He wants order, regularity, stability, comfort, ease, the respect of the community——

MRS. FALCINGTON. He used to tell me all those things bored him to death.

ISABEL. (pleading) You must take him back!

MRS. FALCINGTON. Don't you want him?

ISABEL. Well—(she laughs in embarrassment)—Not that bad!

MRS. FALCINGTON. His father will make him an allowance to live on.

ISABEL. I've told him I would never speak to him again if he took it.

MRS. FALCINGTON. You don't expect him to work, do you?

ISABEL. Yes—if he has anything to do with me.

MRS. FALCINGTON. Then if you can make him do that, by all means take charge of his destinies!

ISABEL. But—but—that's not the point. He loves you. He wants to go back. He didn't do any of those things he was accused of, you know.

MRS. FALCINGTON. Did he tell you that?

ISABEL. Yes.

MRS. FALCINGTON. Well—he told a story. (Isabel is shocked.) Oh, there's no doubt about it. (Her tone leaves none.)

ISABEL. But she was ugly!

MRS. FALCINGTON. Did he tell you that?

ISABEL. Yes! Wasn't she?

MRS. FALCINGTON. There are handsome poetesses—a few—and this was one of them. She is one of the most beautiful women in Chicago.

ISABEL. Then he lied….

MRS. FALCINGTON. Oh, yes—of course. He just can't help it. Any more than he can help making love——

ISABEL. You mean this is not the first——

MRS. FALCINGTON. In the seven years of our marriage, he has made love to every pretty woman he came across.

ISABEL. (sharply) Why did you stand for it?

MRS. FALCINGTON. Because I was a fool. And because he is a child.

ISABEL. (almost pleadingly) He can write poetry, can't he?

MRS. FALCINGTON. Yes. Yes! Oh, yes!

ISABEL. Then—I suppose—it's all right. But I'm angry at myself, just the same, for being taken in.

MRS. FALCINGTON. It's strange…. You feel humiliated at having been made a fool of for seven days. I've been made a fool of for seven years, and I've never realized that I had a right to feel ashamed.

ISABEL. That's the difference between Greenwich Village and Evanston, Illinois.

MRS. FALCINGTON. Yes. But when I go back I shall lose the sense of it. I'll think I'm an injured woman because he was unfaithful to me, or because he brought scandal upon the family, or something like that. Now I realize that it's none of those things. It's—it's just an offence against—my human dignity. I've been treated like—like an inferior. But why shouldn't I be treated like an inferior? I am an inferior. When I go back to Evanston, and take up grass-widowhood and the burden of living down the family scandal, and sit and twiddle my thumbs in a big house, and have my maiden aunt come to live with me——

ISABEL. But why should you do that? If that's what it means to go back to Evanston, don't go! Stay here!

MRS. FALCINGTON. But—what could I do?

ISABEL. Do? Why—why—go on the stage!

MRS. FALCINGTON. (rising) Are you in earnest?

ISABEL. Look here. You've a good voice, and you're intelligent. That's enough to start with. I don't know whether you can act or not—but you'll find out. And if you can't act, you'll do something else. Your people will stake you?—give you an allowance, I mean?

MRS. FALCINGTON. To go on the stage with? Never. But I've a small income of my own. Only about a hundred a month. Would that do?

ISABEL. Do? Yes, that will do very well! And now it's my turn to ask you—are you in earnest? Because I am.

MRS. FALCINGTON. You are the first human being who even suggested to me that I could do anything. I've wanted to do something, but I couldn't even think of it as possible. It wasn't possible in Evanston. And as for acting, I kept that dream fast locked at the very bottom of my heart, for fear if I brought it out it would be shattered by polite laughter—

ISABEL. You'll have to expose that dream to worse things than polite laughter, my dear.

MRS. FALCINGTON. I can, now. It won't get hurt. I'm free now to take care of my dream—to fight for it—to make it come true. You have set me free.—I'm going to go and get a room—now!

Floyd Dell, Poor Harold, Public Domain, 1920.

Full text