GERVASE. Say, "I think I should like you for a companion, Gervase." MELISANDE (shyly). I think I should like you for a companion, Gervase. GERVASE. Say, "Please come and see me again, Gervase." MELISANDE. Please come and see me again, Gervase. GERVASE (Jumping up and waving his hand) Say, "Hooray for things!" MELISANDE (standing up, but shyly still). Hooray for things! GERVASE. Thank you, Melisande . . . I must go. (He presses her hand and goes; or seems to be going. But suddenly he comes back, bends on one knee, raises her hand on his, and kisses it) My Princess! [Then GERVASE goes out. (MELISANDE stays there, looking after him, her hand to her cheek. . . . But one cannot stand thus for ever. The new life must begin. With a little smile at herself, at GERVASE, at things, she fetches out the Great Book from its hiding-place, where she had buried it many weeks ago in disgust. Now it comes into its own. She settles down with it in her favourite chair. . . .) MELISANDE (reading). To make Bread-Sauce. . . . Take an onion, peel and quarter it, and simmer it in milk. . . . (But you know how the romantic passage goes. We have her with it, curled up in the chair, this adorable child, this funny foolish little girl.) THE STEPMOTHER A PLAY IN ONE ACT CHARACTERS SIR JOHN PEMBURY, M.P. LADY PEMBURY. PERKINS. THE STRANGER. * * * * * The first performance of this play was given at the Alhambra Theatre on November 16, 1920, with the following cast: Sir John Pembury--GILBERT HARE. Lady Pembury--WINIFRED EMERY. Perkins--C.M. LOWNE. The Stranger--GERALD DU MAURIER. THE STEPMOTHER (A summer morning. The sunniest and perhaps the pleasantest room in the London house of SIR JOHN PEMBURY, M.P. For this reason LADY PEMBURY uses it a good deal, although it is not officially hers. It is plainly furnished, and probably set out to be a sort of waiting-room for SIR JOHN'S many callers, but LADY PEMBURY has left her mark upon it.) (PERKINS, the butler, inclining to stoutness, but not yet past his prime, leads the may in, followed by THE STRANGER, PERKINS has already placed him as "one of the lower classes," but the intelligent person in the pit perceives that he is something better than that, though whether he is in the process of falling from a higher estate, or of rising to it, is not so clear. He is thirty odd, shabbily dressed (but then, so are most of us nowadays), and ill at ease; not because he is shabby, but because he is ashamed of himself. To make up for this, he adopts a blustering manner, as if to persuade himself that he is a fine fellow after all. There is a touch of commonness about his voice, but he is not uneducated.) PERKINS. I'll tell Sir John you're here, but I don't say he'll see you, mind. STRANGER. Don't you worry about that. He'll see me right enough. PERKINS. He's busy just now. Well---- (He looks at THE STRANGER doubtfully.)