down into a staid
old married woman.

TREMAYNE. Oh no, you're not. You're going on just as you did before. And
I'm going to propose to you every April, and win you, over all the other
men in love with you.

BELINDA. You darling!

[DELIA and DEVENISH come in from the garden.]

TREMAYNE (quietly to BELINDA). Our daughter.

DELIA (going up to TREMAYNE). You're my father.

TREMAYNE. If you don't mind very much, Delia.

DELIA. You've been away a long time.

TREMAYNE. I'll do my best to make up for it.

BELINDA. Delia, darling, I think you might kiss your poor old father.

(As the does to, DEVENISH suddenly and hastily kisses BELINDA on the
cheek.)

DEVENISH. Just in case you're going to be my mother-in-law.

TREMAYNE. We seem to be rather a family party.

BELINDA (suddenly). There! We've forgotten Mr. Baxter again.

BAXTER (who has come in quietly with a book in his hand). Oh, don't mind
about me, Mrs. Tremayne. I've enjoyed myself immensely. (Referring to
his book.) I have been collecting some most valuable information on
(looking round at them) lunacy in the--er--county of _Devonshire_.

THE RED FEATHERS

AN OPERETTA IN ONE ACT

[In the living-room of a country-house, half farm, half manor, a MOTHER
and her DAUGHTER are sitting. It is any year you please--between, let
us say, the day when the fiddle first came to England and the day when
Romance left it. As for the time of the year, let us call it May. Oh
yes, it is certainly May, and about twelve o'clock, and the DAUGHTER is
singing at the spinet, while her MOTHER is at her needlework. Through
the lattice windows the murmur of a stream can be heard, on whose
banks--but we shall come to that directly. Let us listen now to what the
DAUGHTER is singing:]

Life passes by.
I do not know its pleasure or its pain--
The Spring was here, the Spring is here again,
The Spring will die.

Life passes by.
The doors of Pain and Pleasure open wide,
The crowd streams in--and I am left outside....
They know; not I.

[You don't like it? Neither did her Mother.]

MOTHER (looking up from her work). Yes, I should call that a melancholy
song, dear.

DAUGHTER. It is sung by a melancholy person, Mother.

MOTHER. Why are you that, child?

DAUGHTER (getting up). I want so much that I shall never have.

MOTHER. Well, so do we all.

DAUGHTER (impatiently). Oh, why does nothing eve