POOR HAROLD!

A COMEDY

To DUDLEY FIELD MALONE

This play was first produced in Croton-on-Hudson, N. Y., by the Mt.

Airy Players, in 1920, with the following cast:

Harold ...................... Eugene Boissevain Isabel ...................... Doris Stevens Mrs. Murphy .................. B. Marie Gage Mrs. Falcington .............. Crystal Eastman

_A room in Washington Square South. By the light of a candle, a young man in tousled hair and dressing gown is writing furiously at a little table. A clock within strikes seven.

A door at the back opens, and a young woman looks in, sleepily. She frowns. The young man looks up guiltily_.

SHE. What are you doing?

HE. (_innocently_) Writing.

SHE. So I see. (_She comes in, and sits down. It may be remarked that a woman's morning appearance, in dishabille, is a severe test of both looks and character; she pa.s.ses that test triumphantly. She looks at the young man, and asks_)--Poetry?

HE. (_hesitatingly_) No....

SHE. (_continues to look inquiry_).

HE. (_finally_) A letter....

SHE. (_inflexibly_)--To whom?

HE. (_defiantly_) To my wife!

SHE. Oh! That's all right. I thought perhaps you were writing to your father.

HE. (_bitterly_) My father! Why should I write to my father? Isn't it enough that I have broken his heart and brought disgrace upon him in his old age--

SHE. Disgrace? Nonsense! Anybody might be named as a co-respondent in a divorce case.

HE. Not in Evanston, Illinois. Not when you are the local feature of a notorious Chicago scandal. Not when your letters to the lady are published in the newspapers.--Oh, those letters!

SHE. Were they such incriminating letters, Harold?

HAROLD. Incriminating? How can you ask that, Isabel? They were perfectly innocent letters, such as any gentleman poet might write to any lady poetess. How was I to know that a rather plain-featured woman I sat next to at a Poetry Dinner in Chicago was conducting a dozen love-affairs? How was I to know that my expressions of literary regard would look like love-letters to her long-suffering husband? That's the irony of it: I'm perfectly blameless. G.o.d knows I couldn't have been anything else, with her. But I've always _been_ blameless--in all the seven years of my marriage, I never even kissed another woman. And then to have this happen! Scandal, disgrace, the talk of all Evanston!

Disowned by my father, repudiated by my wife, ostracized by my friends, cast forth into outer darkness, and dropped naked and penniless into Greenwich Village!

ISABEL. (_laughing_) Oh, not exactly naked, Harold!

HAROLD. One suit! And that--(_he throws off his dressing gown_) evening clothes! I might as well be naked--I can't go anywhere in the daytime. I tell you I'm not used to this. One week ago I had a house, a motor car, a wife, a position in my father's law-office, a place in society--

ISABEL. That's just it--that's why I was afraid you were writing to your father. He'd send you money, of course. But if you ask him for it, I'll never speak to you again. And as for clothes, you know there's a suit of clothes in there,--a perfectly good suit, too, and I think you're an idiot not to put it on.

HAROLD. Yes. One of Jim's old suits.

ISABEL. Well, what if it is? It would fit you perfectly.

HAROLD. Oh, Isabel! Can't you _see_?

ISABEL. No, I can't see. If Jim is generous enough to give you a suit of clothes--

HAROLD. Yes. That's just it. Jim's girl--Jim's clothes--! Well-- (_sullenly_)--I think Jim's generosity has gone far enough. I'll be d.a.m.ned if I'll take his clothes.

ISABEL. You're perfectly disgusting. If you weren't a silly poet and didn't know any better--Yes, Harold Falcington, for a nice boy as you are in most ways, you have the most antiquated and offensive ideas about women! _Jim_ knows better than to have ever considered me his property....

HAROLD. (_taken aback by her fierceness_) Good heavens, Isabel, I didn't mean _that_!

ISABEL. Yes, you did, Harold; but I'm glad you're sorry. It's a good thing you were thrown out of Evanston, Illinois. It's a good thing you came to Greenwich Village. And it's a good thing that I've a strong maternal instinct. If you'll just get the idea out of your head that you're a ruined man and a lost soul because you've been talked about and have lost your job in your father's office, and if you'll just stop thinking that poor dear innocent Greenwich Village is a sink of iniquity and that I'm a wicked woman--

HAROLD. Isabel! I never said you were a wicked woman! I never thought such a thing!

ISABEL. But you think you're a wicked man; and so it comes to the same thing. Look! it's broad daylight. (_She goes to the window, and opens the curtains_.) Put out that candle, and read me the letter you've written to your wife.

_She comes back, blows out the candle herself, and sits down comfortably opposite him_.

HAROLD. No, I can't.

ISABEL. Why not? You've read me all the others. Is this just like them?

(_Teasingly_)--"Dear Gertrude: I know you will not believe me when I say that I have been the victim of a monstrous injustice, but nevertheless it is true. It has all been a hideous mistake." That's the preamble. Then a regular lawyer's brief, arguing the case--ten pages.

Then a wild, pa.s.sionate appeal for her to forget and forgive. I know how it goes. You've written one every night. This is the seventh.

HAROLD. This one is different.

ISABEL. Good. What does it say?

HAROLD. It says that I am in love with you.

ISABEL. Don't prevaricate, Harold! It says you are now hopelessly in the clutches of a vampire--doesn't it?

HAROLD. (_desperately_) No!

ISABEL. (_warningly_) Harold! The truth!

HAROLD. (_weakening_) Well--

ISABEL. I knew it! That's what you would say. You've told her it's no use to forgive you now.