"fndat10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Galsworthy John)

to improve the condition of the sweated, when----

LADY W. [Calmly] When they're going to "improve" ours, if we don't
look out. We've got to get in first, Bill.

LORD W. [Gloomily] I know. It's all fear. That's it! Here we
are, and here we shall stay--as if there'd never been a war.

LADY W. Well, thank heaven there's no "front" to a revolution. You
and I can go to glory together this time. Compact! Anything that's
on, I'm to abate in.

LORD W. Well, in reason.

LADY W. No, in rhyme, too.

LORD W. I say, your dress!

LADY W. Yes, Poulder tried to stop me, but I wasn't going to have
you blown up without me.

LORD W. You duck. You do look stunning. Give us a kiss!

LADY W. [Starting back] Oh, Bill! Don't touch me--your hands!

LORD W. Never mind, my mouth's clean.

They stand about a yard apart, and banding their faces towards each
other, kiss on the lips.

L. ANNE. [Appearing suddenly from the "communication trench," and
tip-toeing silently between them] Oh, Mum! You and Daddy ARE
wasting time! Dinner's ready, you know!


CURTAIN




ACT II

The single room of old MRS. LEMMY, in a small grey house in
Bethnal Green, the room of one cumbered by little save age, and
the crockery debris of the past. A bed, a cupboard, a coloured
portrait of Queen Victoria, and--of all things--a fiddle,
hanging on the wall. By the side of old MRS. LEMMY in her chair
is a pile of corduroy trousers, her day's sweated sewing, and a
small table. She sits with her back to the window, through
which, in the last of the light, the opposite side of the little