[This is not a soliloquy, but is offered as a definite statement. The
players emerge from their game with difficulty.]
ALICK [with JAMES's crown in his hand]. What's that you're saying,
David?
DAVID [like a public speaker explaining the situation in a few well-chosen
words]. The thing I'm speaking about is Love.
JAMES [keeping control of himself]. Do you stand there and say you're
in love, David Wylie?
DAVID. Me; what would I do with the thing?
JAMES [who is by no means without pluck]. I see no necessity for
calling it a thing.
[They are two bachelors who all their lives have been afraid of
nothing but Woman. DAVID in his sportive days--which continue--has
done roguish things with his arm when conducting a lady home under an
umbrella from a soiree, and has both chuckled and been scared on
thinking of it afterwards. JAMES, a commoner fellow altogether, has
discussed the sex over a glass, but is too canny to be in the company
of less than two young women at a time.]
DAVID [derisively]. Oho, has she got you, James?
JAMES [feeling the sting of it]. Nobody has got me.
DAVID. They'll catch you yet, lad.
JAMES. They'll never catch me. You've been nearer catched yourself.
ALICK. Yes, Kitty Menzies, David.
DAVID [feeling himself under the umbrella]. It was a kind of a shave
that.
ALICK [who knows all that is to be known about women and can speak of
them without a tremor].
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