"Love Loves a Pornographer" by Jeff Goode is
copyrighted material and may not be performed, downloaded or
retransmitted without the author's permission.
(LADY LILLIAN and MILLICENT MONGER
remove themselves to another part of
the parlour, while the men conduct
their business:)
MILLICENT
It is kind of you to receive us on such short notice,
Lady Lillian.
LADY LILLIAN
Think nothing of it. It is no more than my duty as
host, wherein kindness is a requisite, not a
prerogative.
MILLICENT
Still, I know it must be an imposition. Miles is
prone to bringing home guests unannounced, as well.
Especially when he's been drinking. I find it an
intolerable inconvenience.
LADY LILLIAN
If they were tolerable or convenient, we could hardly
call them "men".
MILLICENT
Ha ha! That's so. If I may say, Lady Lillian, it's
a wonder the two of us have not grown closer friends,
over the years, living only a yard apart.
LADY LILLIAN
Well, it's a very large yard.
MILLICENT
Yes, I'm winded just from the ride over. Still, one
would think we ought to have so much in common. Your
husband, for example.
LADY LILLIAN
You don't mean to suggest that we share my husband?
MILLICENT
No, of course not. However, I am a great fan of his
work. And you... well, you married him.
LADY LILLIAN
That's as much an antithesis as a commonality.
MILLICENT
And then there's my husband.
LADY LILLIAN
What of him?
MILLICENT
Well, he and Lord Loveworthy are both of a sort,
aren't they?
LADY LILLIAN
They are uniquely themselves, if that's what you
mean. And in that respect they are identical.
MILLICENT
Ha ha! And, of course, we share many personal
interests as well.
LADY LILLIAN
For example?
MILLICENT
We are both avid readers.
LADY LILLIAN
There, you are mistaken. My husband being a writer,
I have long since lost the will to read.
MILLICENT
But you carry a book with you always.
Indeed, LADY LILLIAN has a small book
tucked under her arm even now.
LADY LILLIAN
Oh, this is no book.
MILLICENT
It bears an uncanny resemblance to one. In a
superficial way.
LADY LILLIAN
It is my diary.
MILLICENT
A diary?
LADY LILLIAN
A candid and confidential repository of all my most
secret self-confessions.
MILLICENT
Speaking of candor and confidence, I wonder if I
might coax a kind of confession from you, myself?
LADY LILLIAN
As you are my guest, Mrs. Monger, kindly coax away.
MILLICENT
Why thank you, Lady Lillian, I appreciate that.
LADY LILLIAN
My pleasure.
MILLICENT
Then may I ask you in all bluntness...
LADY LILLIAN
Yes, Mrs. Monger?
MILLICENT
Why do you despise me?
LADY LILLIAN
Oh, my dear Mrs. Monger, the question is absurd.
MILLICENT
Is it?
LADY LILLIAN
Of course.
MILLICENT
I am delighted to hear it.
LADY LILLIAN
If I truly despised you, as you seem to suspect I may
have given you cause to believe, I would never admit
to it, nor the reason for it.
MILLICENT
Wouldn't you?
LADY LILLIAN
Or course not, because, naturally, I would either
assume that you already knew perfectly well wherein
you had wronged me, or not knowing, that the torment
of wondering would be a penance you richly deserved.
MILLICENT
I see. Then you admit that you do despise me?
LADY LILLIAN
Not in the least. My admission is merely
conjectural. If I despised you, which, of course, I
do not, it would be absurd of you to ask, for I would
inevitably deny it, insisting instead that we were
the best of friends. But as we are the best of
friends, the question is absurder still as I do not
despise you and I must therefore deny it all the
more.
MILLICENT
Well, that is a relief, I suppose.
LADY LILLIAN
Of course it is.
MILLICENT
Do you mind if we sit quietly awhile? I am unused to
social discourse, and the effort of this conversation
together with the constrictions of this corset have
quite exhausted me.
LADY LILLIAN
Certainly.
(They sit. MILLICENT opens her book and
LADY LILLIAN her diary. They read and
write, respectively.)