Part 38

GEOFFREY. Oh, all right. It’s going to be a very near thing, they tell me.

ANNYS. Yes, I shall be glad when it’s over.

GEOFFREY. It’s always a trying time. What are you going to do, if you win?

(LADY MOGTON looks in.)

LADY MOGTON. (Seeing GEOFFREY.) Oh, good evening.

GEOFFREY. Good evening.

LADY MOGTON. Chilvers, 2,960—Annys Chilvers, 2,874.

(She disappears—closes door.)

ANNYS. Perhaps I’m not going to win. (She goes to him, smiling.) I hope you’ll win. I would so much rather you won.

GEOFFREY. Very kind of you. I’m afraid that won’t make it a certainty.

ANNYS. (His answer has hardened her again.) How can I? It would not be fair. Without your consent I should never have entered upon it. It was understood that the seat, in any case, would be yours.

GEOFFREY. I would rather you considered yourself quite free. In warfare it doesn’t pay to be “fair” to one’s enemy.

ANNYS. (Still hardening.) Besides, there is no need. There will be other opportunities. I can contest some other constituency. If I win, claim the seat for that.

(A moment.)

GEOFFREY. So this is only the beginning? You have decided to devote yourself to a political career?

ANNYS. Why not?

GEOFFREY. If I were to ask you to abandon it, to come back to your place at my side—helping me, strengthening me?

ANNYS. You mean you would have me abandon my own task—merge myself in you?

GEOFFREY. Be my wife.

ANNYS. It would not be right. I, too, have my work.

GEOFFREY. If it takes you away from me?

ANNYS. Why need it take me away from you? Why cannot we work together for common ends, each in our own way?

GEOFFREY. We talked like that before we tried it. Marriage is not a partnership; it is a leadership.

ANNYS. (She looks at him.) You mean—an ownership.

GEOFFREY. Perhaps you’re right. I didn’t make it. I’m only—beginning to understand it.

ANNYS. And I too. It is not what I want.

GEOFFREY. You mean its duties have become irksome to you.

ANNYS. I mean I want to be the judge myself of what are my duties.