Page:Violet - a vaudeville in four scenes (IA violetvaudeville00yapa).pdf/12



B. So! You’ve done it this time, haven’t you? (Pause.) Have you nothing to say for yourself?

(quietly). Done what, Charles?

B. Done what! Put the keystone to the arch of misconduct, which you have been erecting for the past five years!

Your speech lacks lucidity, Charles, but as you evidently intend to be severe, I will ask you to explain your meaning?

B. You are the talk of the town, and you know it. It seems you went driving with Sidney Dane yesterday, and stopped all the afternoon at some out-of-the-way hotel.

(rising). Charles, you have lost all right to ask me any question as to my conduct. Night after night you come home intoxicated. Long since I have ceased to entreat you to put a stop to your shameful behavior. You leave me to do as I choose. You refuse to go into society with me, and if anyone else, pitying my lonely life, tries to give me a little innocent pleasure, you, find fault, and believe me capable of the extremest bad taste. It is a hard blow to my pride to have anyone, even you, think I would be so vulgar. Your belief in the story does not surprise me, as you have lost all sense of decency; but while claiming that I would be justified in doing anything, I will say to you that the only foundation for the slander is that I did take a drive with Mr. Dane—not yesterday, however, and not alone, but with a party of four.