ELLIE Well, you don’t want us both, do you?

MANGAN [throwing himself into the chair distractedly] My brain won’t stand it. My head’s going to split. Help! Help me to hold it. Quick: hold it: squeeze it. Save me. [ELLIE comes behind his chair; clasps his head hard for a moment; then begins to draw her hands from his forehead back to his ears.] Thank you. [Drowsily.] That’s very refreshing. [Waking a little.] Don’t you hypnotize me, though. I’ve seen men made fools of by hypnotism.

ELLIE [steadily] Be quiet. I’ve seen men made fools of without hypnotism.

MANGAN [humbly] You don’t dislike touching me, I hope. You never touched me before, I noticed.

ELLIE Not since you fell in love naturally with a grown-up nice woman, who will never expect you to make love to her. And I will never expect him to make love to me.

MANGAN He may, though.

ELLIE [making her passes rhythmically] Hush. Go to sleep. Do you hear?You are to go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep; be quiet, deeply deeply quiet; sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep.

He falls asleep. ELLIE steals away; turns the light out; and goes into the garden.

NURSE GUINNESS opens the door and is seen in the light which comes in from the hall.

GUINNESS [speaking to someone outside] Mr Mangan’s not here, duckie: there’s no one here. It’s all dark.

MRS HUSHABYE [without] Try the garden. Mr Dunn and I will be in my boudoir. Show him the way.

GUINNESS Yes, ducky. [She makes for the garden door in the dark; stumbles over the sleeping MANGAN and screams.] Ahoo! O Lord, sir! I beg your pardon, I’m sure: I didn’t see you in the dark. Who is it? [She goes back to the door and turns on the light.] Oh, Mr Mangan, sir, I hope I haven’t hurt you plumping into your lap like that. [Coming to him.] I was looking for you, sir. Mrs Hushabye says will you please — [noticing that he remains quite insensible]. Oh, my good Lord, I hope I haven’t killed him. Sir! Mr Mangan! Sir! [She shakes him; and he is rolling inertly off the chair on the floor when she holds him up and props him against the cushion.] Miss Hessy! Miss Hessy! Quick, doty darling. Miss Hessy! [MRS HUSHABYE comes in from the hall, followed by MAZZINI DUNN.] Oh, Miss Hessy, I’ve been and killed him. MAZZINI runs round the back of the chair to MANGAN’s right hand, and sees that the nurse’s words are apparently only too true.

MAZZINI What tempted you to commit such a crime, woman?

MRS HUSHABYE [trying not to laugh] Do you mean you did it on purpose?

GUINNESS Now is it likely I’d kill any man on purpose? I fell over him in the dark; and I’m a pretty tidy weight. He never spoke nor moved until I shook him; and then he would have dropped dead on the floor. Isn’t it tiresome?

MRS HUSHABYE [going past the nurse to MANGAN’s side, and inspecting him less credulously than MAZZINI] Nonsense! he is not dead: he is only asleep. I can see him breathing.

GUINNESS But why won’t he wake?

MAZZINI [speaking very politely into MANGAN’s ear] Mangan! My dear Mangan! [he blows into MANGAN’s ear].

MRS HUSHABYE That’s no good [she shakes him vigorously]. Mr Mangan, wake up. Do you hear? [He begins to roll over.] Oh! Nurse, nurse: he’s falling: help me.

NURSE GUINNESS rushes to the rescue. With MAZZINI’s assistance, MANGAN is propped safely up again.

GUINNESS [behind the chair; bending over to test the case with her nose] Would he be drunk, do you think, pet?

MRS HUSHABYE Had he any of papa’s rum?

MAZZINI It can’t be that: he is most abstemious. I am afraid he drank too much formerly, and has to drink too little now. You know, Mrs Hushabye, I really think he has been hypnotized.

GUINNESS Hip no what, sir?

MAZZINI One evening at home, after we had seen a hypnotizing performance, the children began playing at it; and Ellie stroked my head. I assure you I went off dead asleep; and they had to send for a professional to wake me up after I had slept eighteen hours. They had to carry me upstairs; and as the poor children were not very strong, they let me slip; and I rolled right down the whole flight and never woke up. [MRS HUSHABYE splutters.] Oh, you may laugh, Mrs Hushabye; but I might have been killed.

MRS HUSHABYE I couldn’t have helped laughing even if you had been, Mr Dunn. So Ellie has hypnotized him. What fun!

MAZZINI Oh no, no, no. It was such a terrible lesson to her: nothing would induce her to try such a thing again.

MRS HUSHABYE Then who did it? I didn’t.

MAZZINI I thought perhaps the captain might have done it unintentionally. He is so fearfully magnetic: I feel vibrations whenever he comes close to me.

GUINNESS The captain will get him out of it anyhow, sir: I’ll back him for that. I’ll go fetch him [she makes for the pantry].

MRS HUSHABYE Wait a bit. [To MAZZINI.] You say he is all right for eighteen hours?

MAZZINI Well, I was asleep for eighteen hours.

MRS HUSHABYE Were you any the worse for it?

MAZZINI I don’t quite remember. They had poured brandy down my throat, you see; and —

MRS HUSHABYE Quite. Anyhow, you survived. Nurse, darling: go and ask Miss Dunn to come to us here. Say I want to speak to her particularly. You will find her with Mr Hushabye probably.

GUINNESS I think not, ducky: Miss Addy is with him. But I’ll find her and send her to you. [She goes out into the garden. ]

MRS HUSHABYE [calling MAZZINI’s attention to the figure on the chair] Now, Mr Dunn, look. Just look. Look hard. Do you still intend to sacrifice your daughter to that thing?

MAZZINI [troubled] You have completely upset me, Mrs Hushabye, by all you have said to me. That anyone could imagine that I — I, a consecrated soldier of freedom, if I may say so — could sacrifice Ellie to anybody or anyone, or that I should ever have dreamed of forcing her inclinations in any way, is a most painful blow to my — well, I suppose you would say to my good opinion of myself.

MRS HUSHABYE [rather stolidly] Sorry.

MAZZINI [looking forlornly at the body] What is your objection to poor Mangan, Mrs Hushabye? He looks all right to me. But then I am so accustomed to him.

MRS HUSHABYE Have you no heart? Have you no sense? Look at the brute! Think of poor weak innocent Ellie in the clutches of this slavedriver, who spends his life making thousands of rough violent workmen bend to his will and sweat for him: a man accustomed to have great masses of iron beaten into shape for him by steam-hammers! to fight with women and girls over a halfpenny an hour ruthlessly! a captain of industry, I think you call him, don’t you? Are you going to fling your delicate, sweet, helpless child into such a beast’s claws just because he will keep her in an expensive house and make her wear diamonds to show how rich he is?

MAZZINI [staring at her in wide-eyed amazement] Bless you, dear Mrs Hushabye, what romantic ideas of business you have! Poor dear Mangan isn’t a bit like that.

MRS HUSHABYE [scornfully] Poor dear Mangan indeed!

MAZZINI But he doesn’t know anything about machinery. He never goes near the men: he couldn’t manage them: he is afraid of them. I never can get him to take the least interest in the works: he hardly knows more about them than you do. People are cruelly unjust to Mangan: they think he is all rugged strength just because his manners are bad.

MRS HUSHABYE Do you mean to tell me he isn’t strong enough to crush poor little Ellie?

MAZZINI Of course it’s very hard to say how any marriage will turn out; but speaking for myself, I should say that he won’t have a dog’s chance against Ellie. You know, Ellie has remarkable strength of character. I think it is because I taught her to like Shakespeare when she was very young.