THE OPEN DOOR

SCENE:  The drawing-room of LORD TORMINSTER’S cottage by the
     sea.  It is 2 a.m. of a fine July night; the French windows are
     open on to the lawn.  The room is dark; in an armchair, SIR
     GEOFFREY TRANSOM, a man of forty, with a frank, pleasant face,
     is seated, deep in thought.  Suddenly the door opens, and LADY
     TORMINSTER appears and switches on the light.  She starts at
     seeing SIR GEOFFREY.

LADY TORMINSTER.  Oh!

SIR GEOFFREY. [Rising.] Hullo!  Don’t be afraid—­it’s only I!

LADY TORMINSTER.  What a start you gave me Why haven’t you gone to bed?

SIR GEOFFREY.  I’m tired of going to bed.  One always has to get up again, and it becomes monotonous.  Why haven’t you gone to sleep?

LADY TORMINSTER.  I don’t know—­it’s too hot, or something.  I’ve come for a book.

SIR GEOFFREY.  Let me choose one for you.

     [He goes to the table.

LADY TORMINSTER.  Why were you sitting in the dark?

SIR GEOFFREY.  Because the light annoyed me.  What sort of book will you have?  A red one or a green one?

LADY TORMINSTER.  Is there a virtue in the colour of the binding?

SIR GEOFFREY.  Why not?  They’re all the same inside.  There are three hundred ways, they say, of cooking a potato—­there are as many of dressing up a lie, and calling it a novel.  But it’s always the same old lie.  Here take this. [He hands her a book.] Popular Astronomy.  That will send you to sleep.

LADY TORMINSTER.  The stars frighten me.  But I’ll try it.  Good-night.

SIR GEOFFREY.  Good-night.

LADY TORMINSTER.  And you really had better go to bed.

SIR GEOFFREY.  I move as an amendment that you sit down and talk.

LADY TORMINSTER.  At this time of night!

SIR GEOFFREY.  Why not?  It’s day in the Antipodes.

LADY TORMINSTER.  And in this attire!

     [She glances at her peignoir.

SIR GEOFFREY.  Pooh!  You are more dressed than you were at dinner.  That’s awfully rude, isn’t it?  But then, you see, you’re not my hostess now—­you’re a spirit, walking in the night.  One can’t be polite to spirits.  Sit down, oh shade, and let us converse.

LADY TORMINSTER. [Hesitating.] I don’t know—­

SIR GEOFFREY.  The household have all retired; and we will make this concession to Mrs. Grundy—­we will leave the door open.  There! [He flings it open.] The Open Door!  Centuries ago, when I was alive, I remember paragraphs with that heading.

LADY TORMINSTER. [Laughing.] So you’re not alive now?

SIR GEOFFREY.  Sir Geoffrey Transom ceased to be when he said good-night to Lady Torminster.  Sir Geoffrey is upstairs asleep.  So is her ladyship.  We are their souls.  Let us talk.