The Early Ayn Rand

HELEN: [Decisively] Don't you think we'd better join the others?

INGALLS: No. [She does not move. She stands looking at him. After a moment, he adds:] You know what I'm going to say.

HELEN: No. I don't know... I don't know... [Involuntarily] I don't want to know...!

INGALLS: I love you, Helen.

HELEN: [Trying to be amused] Really, Steve, we're about ten years too late, aren't we? I'm sure I am. I thought things like that weren't being said anymore. At least... not to me...

BRECKENRIDGE'S VOICE: [Calling from garden] Helen!...

INGALLS: I have wanted to say it for more than ten years.

HELEN: It's too... foolish... and conventional, isn't it? My husband's partner... and... and I'm the perfect wife who's always had everything... INGALLS: Have you?

HELEN:... and you've never seemed to notice that I existed...

INGALLS: Even if I know it's hopeless —

HELEN: Of course it's hopeless... It... it should be hopeless... [There is the sound of voices approaching from the garden. INGALLS moves suddenly to take her in his arms] Steve!... Steve, they're coming back! They're —

[The voices are closer. He stops her words with a violent kiss. Her first movement is to struggle against him, then her body relaxes in surrender, her arms rise to embrace him— very eagerly — just as ADRIENNE, BRECKENRIDGE , SERGE, and TONY enter from the garden. HELEN and INGALLS step apart, she shocked, he perfectly calm. INGALLS is first to break the silence]

INGALLS: I've always wanted to know what one really did at such a moment.

SERGE: [Choking with indignation] This... this... it is monstrous!... It is unspeakable!... It is -

BRECKENRIDGE: [With great poise] Now, Serge. No hysterics please. From anyone. Let us act grown-up. [To HELEN, gently] I'm sorry, Helen. I know this is harder for you than for any of us. I shall try to make it easier, if I can. [Notices ADRIENNE, who looks more stunned and crushed than all the others] What's the matter, Adrienne?

ADRIENNE: [Barely able to answer] Nothing... nothing...

BRECKENRIDGE: Steve, I should like to speak to you alone.

INGALLS: I have wanted to speak to you alone, Walter, for a long time.

CURTAIN

SCENE 2

That evening. The room is in semidarkness, with just one lamp burning on a table. At curtain rise, BRECKENRIDGE is sitting in an armchair, a little slumped, looking tired and dejected. SERGE sits on a low hassock— at a little distance, but almost as if he were sitting at BRECKENRIDGE's feet.

SERGE: It is terrible. It is too terrible and I am sick. I cannot help that it should make me sick.

BRECKENRIDGE: You're young, Serge...

SERGE: Is it only the young who have the feeling of decency?

BRECKENRIDGE: It is only the young who condemn...

SERGE: At the dinner... you were... as if nothing had happened... You were magnificent.

BRECKENRIDGE: There's Billy to think about.

SERGE: And now? What is to happen now?

BRECKENRIDGE: Nothing.

SERGE: Nothing?

BRECKENRIDGE: Serge, my position does not allow me to make this public. People believe in me. I cannot have scandal attached to my name. Besides, think what it would do to Helen. Do you suppose I'd do that to her?

SERGE: Mrs. Breckenridge she did not think of you.

BRECKENRIDGE: [Slowly] There's something about it that I can't understand. It's unlike Helen. But it's much more unlike Steve.

SERGE: Mr. Ingalls? Of him I expect anything.

BRECKENRIDGE: That's not what I mean, Serge. It wouldn't surprise me that Steve should be unscrupulous. But that he should be stupid!

SERGE: Stupid?

BRECKENRIDGE: If Steve had wanted to carry on a secret love affair with Helen, he could have done so for years and years, and none of us would ever guess — if he didn't want us to guess. He's clever. He's too terribly clever. But to start... to start an embrace in broad daylight — when he knew we'd be back for her any moment — a fool wouldn't do that. That's what I can't understand.

SERGE: What did he say when you spoke to him?

BRECKENRIDGE: [Evasively] We spoke of... many things.

SERGE: I cannot understand that this to you should happen! The gratitude it does not exist in the world.