epub:type="z3998:persona">Staff, consisting of
Duval and
the Anarchist on his right and the two
Social-Democrats on his left, supporting him in flank.
Ann
It’s Jack!
Tanner
Caught!
Hector
Why, certainly it is. I said it was you, Tanner, We’ve just been stopped by a puncture: the road is full of nails.
Violet
What are you doing here with all these men?
Ann
Why did you leave us without a word of warning?
Hector
I want that bunch of roses, Miss Whitefield.
To Tanner. When we found you were gone, Miss Whitefield bet me a bunch of roses my car would not overtake yours before you reached Monte Carlo.
Tanner
But this is not the road to Monte Carlo.
Hector
No matter. Miss Whitefield tracked you at every stopping place: she is a regular Sherlock Holmes.
Tanner
The life force! I am lost.
Octavius
Bounding gaily down from the road into the amphitheatre, and coming between Tanner and Straker. I am so glad you are safe, old chap. We were afraid you had been captured by brigands.
Ramsden
Who has been staring at Mendoza. I seem to remember the face of your friend here.
Mendoza rises politely and advances with a smile between Ann and Ramsden.
Hector
Why, so do I.
Octavius
I know you perfectly well, Sir; but I can’t think where I have met you.
Mendoza
To Violet. Do you remember me, madam?
Violet
Oh, quite well; but I am so stupid about names.
Mendoza
It was at the Savoy Hotel.
To Hector. You, sir, used to come with this lady
Violet to lunch.
To Octavius. You, sir, often brought this lady
Ann and her mother to dinner on your way to the Lyceum Theatre.
To Ramsden. You, sir, used to come to supper, with
dropping his voice to a confidential but perfectly audible whisper several different ladies.
Ramsden
Angrily. Well, what is that to you, pray?
Octavius
Why, Violet, I thought you hardly knew one another before this trip, you and Malone!
Violet
Vexed. I suppose this person was the manager.
Mendoza
The waiter, madam. I have a grateful recollection of you all. I gathered from the bountiful way in which you treated me that you all enjoyed your visits very much.
Violet
What impertinence!
She turns her back on him, and goes up the hill with Hector.
Ramsden
That will do, my friend. You do not expect these ladies to treat you as an acquaintance, I suppose, because you have waited on them at table.
Mendoza
Pardon me: it was you who claimed my acquaintance. The ladies followed your example. However, this display of the unfortunate manners of your class closes the incident. For the future, you will please address me with the respect due to a stranger and fellow traveller.
He turns haughtily away and resumes his presidential seat.
Tanner
There! I have found one man on my journey capable of reasonable conversation; and you all instinctively insult him. Even the New Man is as bad as any of you. Enry: you have behaved just like a miserable gentleman.
Straker
Gentleman! Not me.
Ramsden
Really, Tanner, this tone—
Ann
Don’t mind him, Granny: you ought to know him by this time
She takes his arm and coaxes him away to the hill to join Violet and Hector. Octavius follows her, doglike.
Violet
Calling from the hill. Here are the soldiers. They are getting out of their motors.
Duval
Panicstricken. Oh,
nom de Dieu!
The Anarchist
Fools: the state is about to crush you because you spared it at the prompting of the political hangers-on of the bourgeoisie.
The Sulky Social-Democrat
Argumentative to the last. On the contrary, only by capturing the state machine—
The Anarchist
It is going to capture you.
The Rowdy Social-Democrat
His anguish culminating. Ow, chock it. Wot are we ere for? Wot are we wytin for?
Mendoza
Between his teeth. Goon. Talk politics, you idiots: nothing sounds more respectable. Keep it up, I tell you.
The soldiers line the road, commanding the amphitheatre with their rifles. The brigands, struggling with an overwhelming impulse to hide behind one another, look as unconcerned as they can.
Mendoza rises superbly, with undaunted front. The officer in command steps down from the road in to the amphitheatre; looks hard at the brigands; and then inquiringly at
Tanner.
The Officer
Who are these men,
Señor Ingles?
Tanner
My escort.
Mendoza, with a Mephistophelean smile, bows profoundly. An irrepressible grin runs from face to face among
the brigands. They touch their hats, except
the Anarchist, who defies the state with folded arms.
Act IV
The garden of a villa in Granada. Whoever wishes to know what it is like must go to Granada and see. One may prosaically specify a group of hills dotted with villas, the Alhambra on the top of one of the hills, and a considerable town in the valley, approached by dusty white roads in which the children, no matter what they are doing or thinking about, automatically whine for halfpence and reach out little clutching brown palms for them; but there is nothing in this description except the Alhambra, the begging, and the color of the roads, that does not fit Surrey as well as Spain. The difference is that the Surrey hills are comparatively small and ugly, and should properly be called the Surrey Protuberances; but these Spanish hills are of mountain stock: the amenity which conceals their size does not compromise their dignity.
This particular garden is on a hill opposite the Alhambra; and the villa is as expensive and pretentious as a villa must be if it is to be let furnished by the week to opulent American and English visitors. If we stand on the lawn at the foot of the garden and look uphill, our horizon is the stone balustrade of a flagged platform on the edge of infinite space
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