Lord Doldrummond Cyril, _his Son_ (Viscount Aprile) Sir Digby Soame Charles Mandeville, _a tenor_ Mr. Banish, _a banker_ The Hon. Arthur Featherleigh Mr. Samuel Benjamin, _a money-lender_ Lady Doldrummond Julia, _an heiress_ The Hon. Mrs. Howard de Trappe, _her mother, a widow_ Sarah Sparrow, _an American prima donna_

Act I

Scene--_The Library in_ Lord Doldrummond's _house at Brighton. The scene represents a richly-furnished but somewhat oppressive room. The chairs and tables are all narrow, the lamp-shades stiff, the windows have double gla.s.ses._ Lord Doldrummond, _a man of middle-age, handsome, but with a dejected, browbeaten air, sits with a rug over his knees, reading "The Church Times." The_ Butler _announces_ "Sir Digby Soame." Sir Digby _is thin and elderly; has an easy smile and a sharp eye; dresses well; has two manners--the abrupt with men, the suave with women; smiles into his beard over his own witticisms._

_Lord Dol._ Ah, Soame, so you are here at last?

_Soame._ [_Looking at his watch._] I am pretty punctual, only a few minutes late.

_Lord Dol._ I am worried, anxious, irritable, and that has made the time seem long.

_Soame._ Worried, anxious? And what about? Are you not well? Have you found that regularity of life ruins the const.i.tution?

_Lord Dol._ No, my dear Soame, no. But I am willing to own that the existence which my wife enjoys, and which I have learnt to endure, would not suit everyone.

_Soame._ I am glad to find you more tolerant. You used to hold the very harshest and most crude opinions. I remember when we were boys, I could never persuade you to accept the admirable doctrine that a reformed rake makes the best husband!

_Lord Dol._ [_Timidly._] Repentance does not require so large an income as folly! This may explain that paradox. You know, in my way, I, too, am something of a philosopher! I married very young, whereas you entered the Diplomatic Service and resolved to remain single: you wished to study women. I have lived with one for five-and-twenty years. [_Sighs._]

_Soame._ Oh, I admit at once that yours is the greater achievement and was the more daring ambition.

_Lord Dol._ I know all I wish to know about women, but men puzzle me extremely. So I have sent for you. I want your advice. It is Cyril who is the cause of my uneasiness. I am afraid that he is not happy.

_Soame._ Cyril not happy? What is he unhappy about? You have never refused him anything?

_Lord Dol._ Never! No man has had a kinder father! When he is unreasonable I merely say "You are a fool, but please yourself!" No man has had a kinder father!

_Soame._ Does he complain?

_Lord Dol._ He has hinted that his home is uncongenial--yet we have an excellent cook! Ah, thank heaven every night and morning, my dear Digby, that you are a bachelor. Praying for sinners and breeding them would seem the whole duty of man. I was no sooner born than my parents were filled with uneasiness lest I should not live to marry and beget an heir of my own. Now I have an heir, his mother will never know peace until she has found him a wife!

_Soame._ And will you permit Lady Doldrummond to use the same method with Cyril which your mother adopted with such appalling results in your own case?

_Lord Dol._ It does not seem my place to interfere, and love-affairs are not a fit subject of conversation between father and son!

_Soame._ But what does Cyril say to the matrimonial prospect?

_Lord Dol._ He seems melancholy and eats nothing but oranges. Yes, Cyril is a source of great uneasiness.

_Soame._ Does Lady Doldrummond share this uneasiness?

_Lord Dol._ My wife would regard a second thought on any subject as a most dangerous form of temptation. She insists that Cyril has everything which a young man could desire, and when he complains that the house is dull, she takes him for a drive!

_Soame._ But _you_ understand him?

_Lord Dol._ I think I do. If I were young again----

_Soame._ Ah, you regret! I always said you would regret it if you did not take your fling! The pleasures we imagine are so much more alluring, so much more dangerous, than those we experience. I suppose you recognise in Cyril the rascal you might have been, and feel that you have missed your vocation?

_Lord Dol._ [_Meekly._] I was never unruly, my dear Soame. We all have our moments, I own, yet--well, perhaps Cyril has inherited the tastes which I possessed at his age, but lacked the courage to obey.

_Soame._ And so you wish me to advise you how to deal with him! Is he in love? I have constantly observed that when young men find their homes unsympathetic, it is because some particular lady does not form a member of the household. It is usually a lady, too, who would not be considered a convenient addition to any mother's visiting-list!

_Lord Dol._ Lady Doldrummond has taught him that women are the scourges of creation. You, perhaps, do not share that view!

_Soame._ Certainly not. I would teach him to regard them as the reward, the compensation, the sole delight of this dreariest of all possible worlds.

_Lord Dol._ [_Uneasily._] Reward! Compensation! Delight! I beg you will not go so far as that. What notion would be more upsetting? Pray do not use such extreme terms!

_Soame._ Ha! ha! But tell me, Doldrummond, is it true that your wife insists on his retiring at eleven and rising at eight? I hear that she allows him nothing stronger than ginger ale and lemon; that she selects his friends, makes his engagements, and superintends his amus.e.m.e.nts?

Should he marry, I am told she will even undertake the office of best man!

_Lord Dol._ Poor soul! she means well; and if devotion could make the boy a saint he would have been in heaven before he was out of his long clothes. As it is, I fear that nothing can save him.

_Soame._ Save him? You speak as though you suspected that he was not such a saint as his mother thinks him.

_Lord Dol._ I suspect nothing. I only know that my boy is unhappy. You might speak to him, and draw him out if occasion should offer--but do not say a word about this to Lady Doldrummond.

[_Enter_ Lady Doldrummond.--_She is a tall, slight, but not angular woman. Her hair is brown, and brushed back from her temples in the simplest possible fashion. Self-satisfaction (of a gentle and ladylike sort) and eminent contentment with her lot are the only writings on her smooth, almost girlish countenance. She has a prim tenderness and charm of manner which soften her rather cutting voice._]

_Lady Dol._ What! Cyril not here? How do you do, Sir Digby? I am looking for my tiresome boy. I promised to take him to pay some calls this afternoon, and as he may have to talk I must tell him what to say. He has no idea of making himself pleasant to women, and is the shyest creature in the world!

_Soame._ You have always been so careful to shield him from all responsibility, Lady Doldrummond. Who knows what eloquence, what decision, what energy he might display, if you did not possess these gifts in so pre-eminent a degree as to make any exertion on his part unnecessary, and perhaps disrespectful.

_Lady Dol._ Ah! mothers are going out of fashion. Even Cyril occasionally shows a certain impatience when I venture to correct him.

As if I would hurt anyone's feelings unless from a sense of duty! And pray, where is the pleasure of having a son if you may not direct his life?

_Lord Dol._ Cyril might ask, where is the pleasure of having parents if you may not disobey them.

_Lady Dol._ [_To_ Soame.] When Herbert is alone with me he never makes flippant remarks of this kind. [_To_ Lord Doldrummond.] I wonder that you like to give your friends such a wrong impression of your character.

[_Turning to_ Sir Digby.] But I think I see your drift, Sir Digby. You wish to remind me that Cyril is now at an age when I must naturally desire to see him established in a home of his own.

_Soame._ You have caught my meaning. As he is now two-and-twenty, I think he should be allowed more freedom than may have been expedient when he was--say, six months old.

_Lady Dol._ I quite agree with you, and I trust you will convince Herbert that women understand young men far better than their fathers ever could. I have found the very wife for Cyril, and I hope I may soon have the pleasure of welcoming her as a daughter.

_Soame._ A wife! Good heavens! I was suggesting that the boy had more liberty. Marriage is the prison of all emotions, and I should be very sorry to ask any young girl to be a man's gaol-keeper.

_Lord Dol._ Sir Digby is right.

_Lady Dol._ The presence of a third person has the strangest effect on Herbert's moral vision. As I have trained my son with a care and tenderness rarely bestowed nowadays even on a girl, I think I may show some resentment when I am asked to believe him a being with the instincts of a ruffian and the philosophy of a middle-aged bachelor. No, Sir Digby, Cyril is not _my_ child if he does not make his home and his family the happiest in the world!

_Soame._ Yes?