The Romantic Age

by AA Milne

Genre: Romance
Setting: England
Format of Original Source: Play
Recommended Adaptation Length:

Candidate for Adaptation? Promising

EXCERPT:

GERVASE. I want to marry you.

MELISANDE (taken by surprise). Oh! . . . How dare you!

GERVASE. But I told you this morning.

MELISANDE. I think you had better leave this morning out of it.

GERVASE. But if I leave this morning out of it, then I have only just met you.

MELISANDE. That is what I would prefer.

GERVASE. Oh! . . . Then if I have only just met you, perhaps I oughtn’t to have said straight off that I want to marry you.

MELISANDE. It is unusual.

GERVASE. Yes. But not unusual to want to marry you.

MELISANDE. I am not interested in your wants.

GERVASE. Oh! (Gently) I’m sorry that we’ve got to forget about this morning. (Going closer to her) Is it so easy to forget, Melisande?

MELISANDE. Very easy for you, I should think.

GERVASE. But not for you?

MELISANDE (bitterly). You dress up and amuse yourself, and then laugh and go back to your ordinary life again–you don’t want to remember that, do you, every time you do it?

GERVASE. You let your hair down and flirt with me and laugh and go home again, but you can’t forget. Why should I?

MELISANDE (furiously). How dare you say I flirted with you?

GERVASE. How dare you say I laughed at you?

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