Cæsar's Wife: A Comedy in Three Acts

Violet

I should like to meet her. I wonder whom I know that could bring us together.

Ronny

[With a change of tone.] Why do you speak of her?

Violet

Is there any reason why I shouldn't?

Ronny

Do you know that this is the first time I've been quite alone with you for six weeks?

Violet

[Still quite lightly.] It was inevitable that when you ceased being Arthur's private secretary we should see less of one another.

Ronny

I only welcomed my new job because I thought I shouldn't be utterly parted from you.

Violet

Don't you think it was better that we shouldn't see too much of one another?

Ronny

What have I done to you, Violet? Why have you been treating me like this?

Violet

I'm not conscious that I've treated you differently from what I used.

Ronny

Why didn't you answer my letters?

Violet

[In a low voice.] I hadn't anything to say.

Ronny

I wonder if you can imagine what I went through, the eagerness with which I looked forward to a letter from you, just a word or two would have satisfied me, how anxiously I expected each post, and my despair when day after day went by.

Violet

You ought not to have written to me.

Ronny

D'you think I could help myself? Have you forgotten that day when we thought we were never going to meet again? If you wanted me to be nothing more than a friend why did you tell me you loved me? Why did you let me kiss you and hold you in my arms?

Violet

You know quite well. I lost my head. I was foolish. You – you attached too much importance to the emotion of the moment.

Ronny

Oh, Violet, how can you say that? I know you loved me then. After all, the past can't be undone. I loved you. I know you loved me. We couldn't go back to the time when we were no more than friends.

Violet

You forget that Arthur is my husband and you owe him everything in the world. We both owe him everything in the world.

Ronny

No, I don't forget it for a moment. After all, we're straight, both of us, and we could have trusted ourselves. I wanted nothing but to be allowed to love you and to know that you loved me.

Violet

Do you remember what you said in the first letter you wrote me?

Ronny

Oh, you can't blame me for that. I'd loved you so long, so passionately. I'd never dared to hope that you cared for me. And when I knew! I never said a tenth part of what I wanted to. I went home and I just wrote all that had filled my heart to overflowing. I wanted you to know how humbly grateful I was for the wonderful happiness you'd given me. I wanted you to know that my soul to its most hidden corners was yours for ever.

Violet

How could I answer it?

Ronny

You needn't have been afraid of me, Violet. If it displeased you I would never even have told you that I loved you. I would have carried you in my heart like an image of the Blessed Virgin. When we met here or there, though there were a thousand people between us and we never exchanged a word, I should have known that we were the only people in the world, and that somehow, in some strange mystic fashion, I belonged to you and you belonged to me. Oh, Violet, I only wanted a little kindness. Was it so much to ask?

[Violet is moved to the very depths of her heart. She can scarcely control herself, the pain she suffers seems unendurable; her throat is so dry that she can hardly speak.]

Violet

They say that Miss Pender is in love with you. Is it true?

Ronny

A man's generally a conceited ass when he thinks girls are in love with him.

Violet