Cæsar's Wife: A Comedy in Three Acts

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.