Page:Heartbreak House, Great Catherine, and Playlets of the War.djvu/142

 ing]. It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

LADY UTTERWORD [suddenly rising in a rage, to the astonishment of the rest]. How dare you?

HECTOR. Good heavens! What's the matter?

RANDALL [in a warning whisper]. Tch--tch-tch! Steady.

ELLIE [surprised and haughty]. I was not addressing you particularly, Lady Utterword. And I am not accustomed to being asked how dare I.

LADY UTTERWORD. Of course not. Anyone can see how badly you have been brought up.

MAZZINI. Oh, I hope not, Lady Utterword. Really!

LADY UTTERWORD. I know very well what you meant. The impudence!

ELLIE. What on earth do you mean?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [advancing to the table]. She means that her heart will not break. She has been longing all her life for someone to break it. At last she has become afraid she has none to break.

LADY UTTERWORD [flinging herself on her knees and throwing her arms round him]. Papa, don't say you think I've no heart.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [raising her with grim tenderness]. If you had no heart how could you want to have it broken, child?

HECTOR [rising with a bound]. Lady Utterword, you are not to be trusted. You have made a scene [he runs out into the garden through the starboard door].

LADY UTTERWORD. Oh! Hector, Hector! [she runs out after him].

RANDALL. Only nerves, I assure you. [He rises and follows her, waving the poker in his agitation].