LUCY. That must be the reason.

  COSENS. Is it?

  LUCY. Who am I that I should contradict you?

  (Enter effie.)

  EFFIE. The Professor wants you, Miss White.

  (effie goes.)

  LUCY. Very well. (Going.)

  COSENS. What are you going to do now?

  LUCY. Such a clever man does not need to be told that.

  COSENS. The game is up, Miss White.

  LUCY. Is it?

  COSENS. Isn’t it?

  LUCY. You know best.

  COSENS. I don’t understand you. But either you leave the Professor’s service or I tell him what you have been up to. Which is it to be?

  LUCY. 99.

  (She goes, COSENS stamps about not sure what to do, starts to go and changes mind. Enter PROFESSOR with a Gladstone bag.)

  COSENS. What are you doing, Tom?

  PROFESSOR. Packing. (Puts bag on table, and begins to pack all sorts of things in it.) There’s a train to Tullochmains at 11.35 and I have just time to catch it. Effie will follow with my things tomorrow.

  COSENS. Good! Very good! Capital!

  (EFFIE runs in with PROFESSOR’S coat, takes off his dressing-gown, and puts coat on him.)

  PROFESSOR. Not that I believe it is love, but you have agitated me, and I know that under the circumstances Agnes’s advice to me would be the same as when I was in Paris.

  COSENS. When was that?

  PROFESSOR. Years ago.

  (Enter LUCY with some papers.)

  Miss Lucy, I cannot find my folio H.

  (She gets it from drawer and packs it in bag.)

  COSENS. What about Paris?

  PROFESSOR. I’d gone out for a walk and forgotten what hotel I was stopping at. Agnes wasn’t with me, but I knew that she knew my address, so I telegraphed to her to telegraph back to me at once where I was staying.

  COSENS. And did she?

  PROFESSOR. No, she telegraphed me to do best thing. Best thing—’ Come home at once.’ (The PROFESSOR goes, EFFIE follows with bag. LUCY at table is busy arranging papers.)

  COSENS (triumphantly). So, Miss White, fate has been too strong for you.

  LUCY. A woman soon goes to the wall, doesn’t she?

  COSENS. What will you do now?

  LUCY. Does it matter?

  COSENS. Not to me. But I feel rather sorry for you. To lose your place just when everything seemed to be going nicely. Yes, I’m sorry for you.

  LUCY. Please, no flowers — by request.

  COSENS. I like your pluck. And as I leave now, Miss White, I bear you no malice. Indeed, if I can help you to another situation —

  (She brings out her handkerchief and dabs her eyes. He stares professor hurries on with a telegraph form.)

  PROFESSOR. Effie — isn’t Effie here? I want to send a telegram to Agnes. (Writing it out.) Put on your hat, Miss Lucy, we have just time to catch the train.

  (LUCY puts on hat at mirror.)

  COSENS. What, is she going with you?

  PROFESSOR. Of course, I always take my secretary with me.

  (COSENS is staggered. LUCY looks quaintly at him.)

  COSENS (firmly). Tom, I have something to tell you.

  PROFESSOR. One moment, Dick. I must have this sent off. Effie!

  (He goes. LUCY goes to table, and puts papers together.)

  COSENS (going). Very clever of you, Miss White, but as you will have it, I shall tell him now who the woman is.

  LUCY. Ah!

  (She takes the wastepaper basket to table, lays it on chair, takes out two pieces of paper, lays them on table, and puts them together.)

  COSENS (anxiously). What is that?

  LUCY. Your prescription for the Professor.

  COSENS. Give it to me!

  LUCY. Oh no!

  COSENS. What are you going to do with it?

  LUCY. I oughtn’t to keep it to myself, ought I? I think of sending it to the British Medical Journal.

  COSENS. Eh?

  LUCY. With a note from me, saying that it is the eminent Dr. Cosens’ cure for love. You will be a specialist after to-day, Doctor.

  COSENS (very much embarrassed). You — you — if I don’t tell him who the woman is, will you give me that prescription?

  (LUCY nods.)

  Come, then.

  (LUCY refuses to give it him yet.)

  PROFESSOR (returning). Didn’t you say you had something to tell me, Dick?

  COSENS. No, Tom, I don’t think so.

  (He holds out hand for the prescription. LUCY gives it him, and he looks at it.)

  COSENS (aside). Quinine.

  PROFESSOR. Try a run north to see us, Dick.

  COSENS. I should like to, Tom, but — (Shaking hands.)

  LUCY (mockingly). Do, Doctor.

  COSENS (meekly). Thank you, Miss White.

  (Enter EFFIE.)

  EFFIE. The cab is at the door, sir. (She has his hat and stick.)

  PROFESSOR. Mind, Dick, I don’t believe in your diagnosis, I don’t believe a word of it, for there is no woman, and how could any one love vacuum? — quite absurd, quite absurd — but in case — just in case, there is no harm in taking precaution, and if there is such a woman —

  EFFIE (from door). You’ll need all your time, sir.

  PROFESSOR. If there is such a woman, there is no harm in running away from her, is there? I have you there! Have you there. Take my arm, Miss White.

  (The PROFESSOR and LUCY go. COSENS raises his hands helplessly to heaven, but cannot help seeing the humour of the situation.)

  ACT II

  A CORNFIELD at harvest time. The corn down is already cut and standing in stooks. Effie is sitting on stook, knitting a stocking. Enter Pete, sheepishly. He is in corduroys, without coat, and strings are tied round the trousers below his knees. He is eating an apple. He comes and gazes at her fondly but cautiously. She knits demurely.

  PETE. Effie!

  EFFIE. Pete!

  PETE. It’s yoursel’, Effie?

  EFFIE. I dinna deny it, Pete.

  PETE. It’s dinner time, lassie.

  EFFIE. It’s dinner time to common folk, but it’s hardly breakfast time to their betters. The likes of you doesna ken what they do in grand society. You should see the Professor’s house in London. I may say the walls is papered in bank notes.

  PETE. And yet he doesna work. He just invents electricity machines.

  EFFIE. He is a great man.

  PETE. Maybe, but I dinna approve o’ him.

  EFFIE. What for no?

  PETE. Because, Effie, there’s na electricity machines in the Bible!

  EFFIE. He’s a religious man.

  PETE. I question it. He has put English windows into his cottage, that open outwards. There’s no windows in the Bible that open outwards. All the windows in the Bible slide up and down.

  (Pause.)

  EFFIE. It may be so.

  PETE. It is so. It’s the Scotch way. Effie!

  EFFIE. Pete!

  PETE. I’m like the Professor in one respect — I’m a single man.

  EFFIE. Any coward can be a single man. It’s the only calling that’s open to them.

  PETE. I’m not a coward — I’m just cautious. Effie, I’ve had something on the tip o’ my tongue to say to you this three years.

  EFFIE. What about?

  PETE. About — about marriage.

  EFFIE (coyly). What about marriage?

  (Enter HENDERS with sickle.)

  PETE. It’s — an honourable estate, Effie.

  EFFIE. It is, Pete.

  PETE (fondly). But it’s for life — Effie!

  EFFIE. I’m listening, Pete.

  PETE. I’m holding mysel’ with an awful effort. I hinna kent you lang enough to say what I want to say.

  EFFIE. Five years.

  PETE. That’s no lang for such a risky thing.

  EFFIE. Be courageous, Pete.

  PETE. I will. (Starts to embrace her, but becomes scared. Draws back and walks away.) I’ll bide a wee. It’s so chancey. Good day to you, Effie.

  EFFIE. Good day.

  (PETE goes, HENDERS comes towards EFFIE. He is very domineering in manner.)

  HENDERS. What was Pete saying to you, Effie?

  EFFIE (coquettishly). Different things.

  HENDERS. He wasn’t asking you to marry him, was he?

  EFFIE. That might be one of the things.

  HENDERS. Was it?

  EFFIE. No, Henders.

  HENDERS. Effie, dinna tak’ Pete, if he asks you to marry him.

  EFFIE. What for no?

  HENDERS. Because there’s better than him to be got. Tell me this first, do you like him or me best, Effie?

  EFFIE. You, Henders.

  HENDERS. A lot better?

  EFFIE. Humpha. No comparison.

  HENDERS. Ay; well, in that case, there’s no hurry. Good day to you, Effie.

  (He goes, EFFIE watches him and sighs. Enter DOWAGER with corn sheaf, dressed in her charming idea of a harvesting dress.)

  DOWAGER. Oh, Effie! Do show me how to make the thingumbob that goes round — the waistbelt, you know.

  EFFIE. The band, my lady. It’s this way.

  DOWAGER (kneeling over sheaf). Charming! But I don’t want to learn. I want you to find the Professor and give him this letter.

  EFFIE (taking letter). Yes, my lady.

  DOWAGER. And, Effie, here comes Miss Goodwillie. She needn’t see the letter. It’s only about electricity.

  (EFFIE goes, MISS GOODWILLIE enters. She is outwardly hard.)

  Ah, Miss Goodwillie. Effie has been teaching me to bind. Such fun.

  MISS GOODWILLIE. I feel sure Effie never taught you to bind in that way. That is not binding, that’s strangling.

  (Enter LADY GILDING, coming down stage, dressed in harvesting costume, similar to DOWAGER, and carrying sheaf.)

  LADY GILDING. HOW do you think our harvesting is progressing, Miss Goodwillie?

  MISS GOODWILLIE. I think you hold your sheaf, Lady Gilding, as if it were an infant.

  DOWAGER. Ha, ha, so you do, Mildred! (Acting three ways) Good child, naughty child, upside-down child.

  (LADY GILDING flings down sheaf. Enter SIR GEORGE.)

  SIR GEORGE. I hope you are admiring our handiwork, Miss Goodwillie?

  MISS GOODWILLIE. I wonder you don’t go and play at something else.

  LADY GILDING. Play!

  SIR GEORGE. Play! I assure you, Miss Goodwillie, you make a great mistake. (Sits on stook.)

  LADY GILDING. So much so, that George has completely exhausted himself, and I mean to consult Dr. Yellowlees about him.

  MISS GOODWILLIE. Do, and get the doctor to stop this tomfoolery, if I may call it so.

  SIR GEORGE. Tomfoolery! You don’t seem to understand, Miss Goodwillie, that I am cutting my own corn by the sweat of my brow, because, as a member of Parliament, I want to know by personal experience just how my constituents live.

  LADY GILDING. And I, as George’s wife, assist, so that manual labour may be elevated in the eyes of the wives of the working classes.

  DOWAGER. We are even wearing dresses such as those worn by the common things while harvesting.

  MISS GOODWILLIE. Hum! Bond Street?

  DOWAGER (confidentially). No, a clever little creature of a maid I have. I get her cheap because she drinks.

  (HENDERS enters. He draws near listening. He has an old letterbox in his hand.)

  MISS GOODWILLIE. And you really hold, Sir George, that there is no difference between your harvesting and that of the poor?

  SIR GEORGE. Absolutely none.

  (Enter gorgeous MALE SERVANT and PAGEBOY carrying lunch-basket and champagne.)

  SERVANT. Where shall we lay the luncheon, Sir George?

  SIR GEORGE (pointing). Down by the stream.

  (The SERVANTS leave, followed by SIR GEORGE, MISS GOODWILLIE and HENDERS laugh loudly.)

  MISS GOODWILLIE. What have you got there, Henders?

  HENDERS. I found it in the field when I was cutting — it’s your old letterbox.

  MISS GOODWILLIE (agitated). The old letterbox!

  HENDERS. Ay, it had blown down in the winter, I suppose.

  MISS GOODWILLIE. The old letterbox! What are you going to do with it?

  HENDERS. It hasna been in use this dozen years, except for starlings to build in.

  MISS GOODWILLIE. I know.

  HENDERS. So I meant to nail it up in my garden and see if they would build in it there, but if you want it — I —

  MISS GOODWILLIE. I want it? No! Give it to me.

  (He starts to hand it to her.)

  Take it away, but don’t nail it up anywhere. Burn it.

  (She goes agitatedly.)

  DOWAGER. Why has Miss Goodwillie gone, man?

  HENDERS. I wonder. She’s shaking like a leaf.

  DOWAGER. Shaking? Why?

  LADY GILDING. I heard and understand.

  HENDERS. It’s mair than I do. It’s queer. (Exit.)

  DOWAGER (sitting on stook). And it’s more than I do.

  LADY GILDING. Then you don’t know that Miss Goodwillie had a love story?

  DOWAGER. Never! There are audacious men! Tell me about it.

  (They sit on fallen sheaf.)

  LADY GILDING. As I understand, the affair took place more than twenty years ago. In the Professor’s student days, he brought a friend named Bob Sandeman here, one summer, and Miss Goodwillie fell in love with him and he with her, but he was too poor even to get engaged to her. He went away to Australia, and the understanding was, that as soon as he could make a living there he was to write and ask her to go out to him. But he never did.

  DOWAGER. He wasn’t so audacious as that! What became of him?

  LADY GILDING. He got on very well.

  DOWAGER. I can guess. He married a cornstalk and they call each other ‘cooee.’ LADY GILDING. No, he never married; he died years ago.

  DOWAGER. But what had the old letterbox to do with this?

  LADY GILDING. It had been erected at the foot of the hill to save the postman the trouble of climbing to the house, and every day for years Miss Goodwillie used to go and look in the letterbox for her letter.

  DOWAGER. Cooee!

  LADY GILDING. They say she was as white as a ghost in those days.

  DOWAGER. Poor thing. But still — cooee, cooee!

  LADY GILDING. And she cried herself into a fever.

  DOWAGER. No wonder men have little respect for women.

  LADY GILDING. George says he believes the man ran off to Australia to avoid her.

  DOWAGER. And so ends this strange, eventful history.

  LADY GILDING. And he also says that he fears the Professor is not a marrying man either, sweet.

  DOWAGER. What does that matter, love, when I am a marrying woman?

  LADY GILDING. George is afraid that it matters a great deal, darling.

  DOWAGER. That is because George never realised how he came to be married himself, pet.

  LADY GILDING. Mamma!

  (Enter DR. COSENS.)

  COSENS. Lady Gilding! (Goes to LADIES, shakes hands.)

  DOWAGER. Dr. Cosens!

  LADY GILDING. This is an unexpected pleasure.

  DOWAGER. Did the Goodwillies know you are coming?

  COSENS. No, it is a surprise visit. I found I had a week-end to spare and the Professor’s case interested me so much that — here I am.

  LADY GILDING. They will be delighted to see you.

  COSENS. I was told in the village that I should find them here.