Part 14

FANNY [she looks up. There is a suspicion of a smile]. One might say—sufficient?

DR. FREEMANTLE [laughs]. Excellent servants. If they’d only remember it. [He glances round—sinks his voice.] Take my advice. Put your foot down—before it’s too late.

FANNY. Sit down, please. [She makes room for him on the settee.] Because I’m going to be confidential. You don’t mind, do you?

DR. FREEMANTLE [seating himself]. My dear, I take it as the greatest compliment I have had paid to me for years.

FANNY. You put everything so nicely. I’m two persons. I’m an angel—perhaps that is too strong a word?

DR. FREEMANTLE [doubtfully]. Well—

FANNY. We’ll say saint. Or else I’m—the other thing.

DR. FREEMANTLE. Do you know, I think you could be.

FANNY. It’s not a question about which there is any doubt.

DR. FREEMANTLE. Of course, in this case, a little bit of the devil—

FANNY [she shakes her head]. There’s such a lot of mine. It has always hampered me, never being able to hit the happy medium.

DR. FREEMANTLE. It is awkward.

FANNY. I thought I would go on being an angel—

DR. FREEMANTLE. Saint.

FANNY. Saint—till—well, till it became physically impossible to be a saint any longer.

DR. FREEMANTLE. And then?

FANNY [she rises, turns to him with a gesture of half-comic, half-tragic despair]. Well, then I can’t help it, can I?

DR. FREEMANTLE. I think you’re making a mistake. An explosion will undoubtedly have to take place. That being so, the sooner it takes place the better. [He rises.] What are you afraid of?

FANNY [she changes her tone—the talk becomes serious]. You’ve known Vernon all his life?

DR. FREEMANTLE. No one better.

FANNY. Tell me. I’ve known him only as a lover. What sort of a man is he?

A pause. They are looking straight into each other’s eyes.

DR. FREEMANTLE. A man it pays to be perfectly frank with.

FANNY. It’s a very old family, isn’t it?

DR. FREEMANTLE. Old! Good Lord no! First Lord Bantock was only Vernon’s great-grandfather. That is the woman that did it all. [He is looking at the Hoppner.]

FANNY. How do you mean?

DR. FREEMANTLE. Got them their title. Made the name of Bantock of importance in the history of the Georges. Clever woman.

FANNY [leaning over a chair, she is staring into the eyes of the first Lady Bantock]. I wonder what she would have done if she had ever got herself into a really first-class muddle?