CURTAIN

ACT III

SCENE I

HILLCRIST'S study next morning.

JILL coming from Left, looks in at the open French window.

JILL. [Speaking to ROLF, invisible] Come in here. There's no one.

[She goes in. ROLF joins her, coming from the garden.]

ROLF. Jill, I just wanted to say--Need we?

[JILL. nodes.]

Seeing you yesterday--it did seem rotten.

JILL. We didn't begin it.

ROLF. No; but you don't understand. If you'd made yourself, as father has----

JILL. I hope I should be sorry.

ROLF. [Reproachfully] That isn't like you. Really he can't help thinking he's a public benefactor.

JILL. And we can't help thinking he's a pig. Sorry!

ROLF. If the survival of the fittest is right----

JILL. He may be fitter, but he's not going to survive.

ROLF. [Distracted] It looks like it, though.

JILL. Is that all you came to say?

ROLF. Suppose we joined, couldn't we stop it?

JILL. I don't feel like joining.

ROLF. We did shake hands.

JILL. One can't fight and not grow bitter.

ROLF. I don't feel bitter.

JILL. Wait; you'll feel it soon enough.

ROLF. Why? [Attentively] About Chloe? I do think your mother's manner to her is----

JILL. Well?

ROLF. Sn.o.bbish. [JILL laughs.]

She may not be your cla.s.s; and that's just why it's sn.o.bbish.

JILL. I think you'd better shut up.

ROLF. What my father said was true; your mother's rudeness to her that day she came here, has made both him and Charlie ever so much more bitter.

[JILL whistles the Habanera from "Carmen."]

[Staring at her, rather angrily]

Is it a whistling matter?

JILL. No.

ROLF. I suppose you want me to go?

JILL. Yes.

ROLF. All right. Aren't we ever going to be friends again?

JILL. [Looking steadily at him] I don't expect so.

ROLF. That's very-horrible.

JILL. Lots of horrible things in the world.

ROLF. It's our business to make them fewer, Jill.

JILL. [Fiercely] Don't be moral.

ROLF. [Hurt] That's the last thing I want to be.--I only want to be friendly.

JILL. Better be real first.

ROLF. From the big point of view----

JILL. There isn't any. We're all out, for our own. And why not?

ROLF. By jove, you have got----

JILL. Cynical? Your father's motto--"Every man for himself."