SCENE--The same as Scene One, Professor Leeds' study. It is about nine o'clock of a night in early fall, over a year later. The appearance of the room is unchanged except that all the shades, of the color of pale flesh, are drawn down, giving the windows a suggestion of lifeless closed eyes and making the room seem more withdrawn from life than before. The reading lamp on the table is lit. Everything on the table, papers, pencils, pens, etc., is arranged in meticulous order.
Marsden is seated on the chair at center. He is dressed carefully in an English made suit of blue serge so dark as to seem black, and which, combined with the gloomy brooding expression of his face, strongly suggests one in mourning. His tall, thin body sags wearily in the chair, his head is sunk forward, the chin almost touching his chest, his eyes stare sadly at nothing.
MARSDEN--(his thoughts at ebb, without emphasis, sluggish and melancholy)
Prophetic Professor! … I remember he once said … shortly after Nina went away … "some day, in here, … you'll find me" … did he foresee? … no … everything in life is so contemptuously accidental! … God's sneer at our self-importance! …
(smiling grimly)
Poor Professor! he was horribly lonely … tried to hide it … always telling you how beneficial the training at the hospital would be for her … poor old chap!…
(His voice grows husky and uncertain--he controls it--straightens himself)
What time is it? …
(He takes out his watch mechanically and looks at it.)
Ten after nine. … Nina ought to be here. …
(then with sudden bitterness)
Will she feel any real grief over his death, I wonder? … I doubt it! … but why am I so resentful? … the two times I've visited the hospital she's been pleasant enough … pleasantly evasive! … perhaps she thought her father had sent me to spy on her … poor Professor! … at least she answered his letters … he used to show them to me … pathetically overjoyed … newsy, loveless scripts, telling nothing whatever about herself … well, she won't have to compose them any more … she never answered mine … she might at least have acknowledged them. … Mother thinks she's behaved quite inexcusably …
(then jealously)
I suppose every single damned inmate has fallen in love with her! … her eyes seemed cynical … sick with men … as though I'd looked into the eyes of a prostitute … not that I ever have … except that once … the dollar house … hers were like patent leather buttons in a saucer of blue milk! …
(getting up with a movement of impatience)
The devil! … what beastly incidents our memories insist on cherishing! … the ugly and disgusting … the beautiful things we have to keep diaries to remember! …
(He smiles with a wry amusement for a second--then bitterly)
That last night Nina was here … she talked so brazenly about giving herself … I wish I knew the truth of what she's been doing in that house full of men … particularly that self-important young ass of a doctor! … Gordon's friend! …
(He frowns at himself, determinedly puts an end to his train of thought and comes and sits down again in the chair--in sneering, conversational tones as if he were this time actually addressing another person)
Really, it's hardly a decent time, is it, for that kind of speculation … with her father lying dead upstairs? …
(A silence as if he had respectably squelched himself--then he pulls out his watch mechanically and stares at it. As he does so a noise of a car is heard approaching, stopping at the curb beyond the garden. He jumps to his feet and starts to go to door--then hesitates confusedly.)
No, let Mary go … I wouldn't know what to do … take her in my arms? … kiss her? … right now? … or wait until she? …
(A bell rings insistently from the back of the house. From the front voices are heard, first Nina's, then a man's. Marsden starts, his face suddenly angry and dejected.)
Someone with her! … a man! … I thought she'd be alone! …
(Mary is heard shuffling to the front door which is opened. Immediately, as Mary sees Nina, she breaks down and there is the sound of her uncontrolled sobbing and choking, incoherent words drowning out Nina's voice, soothing her.)