Volume Iv Part 71 (1/2)

JILL. You!

[She dives through to the Right, and returns, holding CHLOE'S hand and drawing her forward]

Come in! It's only us! [To HILLCRIST] Dodo!

HILLCRIST. [Fl.u.s.tered, but making a show of courtesy] Good evening! Won't you sit down?

JILL. Sit down; you're all shaky.

[She makes CHLOE sit down in the armchair, out of which they have risen, then locks the door, and closing the windows, draws the curtains hastily over them.]

HILLCRIST. [Awkward and expectant] Can I do anything for you?

CHLOE. I couldn't bear it he's coming to ask you----

HILLCRIST. Who?

CHLOE. My husband. [She draws in her breath with a long shudder, then seem to seize her courage in her hands] I've got to be quick.

He keeps on asking--he knows there's something.

HILLCRIST. Make your mind easy. We shan't tell him.

CHLOE. [Appealing] Oh! that's not enough. Can't you tell him something to put him back to thinking it's all right? I've done him such a wrong. I didn't realise till after--I thought meeting him was just a piece of wonderful good luck, after what I'd been through. I'm not such a bad lot--not really.

[She stops from the over-quivering of her lips. JILL, standing beside the chair, strokes her shoulder. HILLCRIST stands very still, painfully biting at a finger.]

You see, my father went bankrupt, and I was in a shop----

HILLCRIST. [Soothingly, and to prevent disclosures] Yes, yes; Yes, yes!

CHLOE. I never gave a man away or did anything I was ashamed of--at least--I mean, I had to make my living in all sorts of ways, and then I met Charlie.

[Again she stopped from the quivering of her lips.]

JILL. It's all right.

CHLOE. He thought I was respectable, and that was such a relief, you can't think, so--so I let him.

JILL. Dodo! It's awful

HILLCRIST. It is!

CHLOE. And after I married him, you see, I fell in love. If I had before, perhaps I wouldn't have dared only, I don't know--you never know, do you? When there's a straw going, you catch at it.

JILL. Of course you do.

CHLOE. And now, you see, I'm going to have a child.

JILL. [Aghast] Oh! Are you?