ROBERT.
[Taking his hands.] Yes. Mine are stronger. But I meant strength of another kind.
RICHARD.
[Gloomily.] I think you would try to take her by violence.
[He withdraws his hands slowly.]
ROBERT.
[Rapidly.] Those are moments of sheer madness when we feel an intense passion for a woman. We see nothing. We think of nothing. Only to possess her. Call it brutal, bestial, what you will.
RICHARD.
[A little timidly.] I am afraid that that longing to possess a woman is not love.
ROBERT.
[Impatiently.] No man ever yet lived on this earth who did not long to possess—I mean to possess in the flesh—the woman whom he loves. It is nature’s law.
RICHARD.
[Contemptuously.] What is that to me? Did I vote it?
ROBERT.
But if you love… What else is it?
RICHARD.
[Hesitatingly.] To wish her well.
ROBERT.
[Warmly.] But the passion which burns us night and day to possess her. You feel it as I do. And it is not what you said now.
RICHARD.
Have you…? [He stops for an instance.] Have you the luminous certitude that yours is the brain in contact with which she must think and understand and that yours is the body in contact with which her body must feel? Have you this certitude in yourself?
ROBERT.
Have you?
RICHARD.
[Moved.] Once I had it, Robert: a certitude as luminous as that of my own existence—or an illusion as luminous.
ROBERT.
[Cautiously.] And now?
RICHARD.
If you had it and I could feel that you had it—even now…
ROBERT.
What would you do?
RICHARD.
[Quietly.] Go away. You, and not I, would be necessary to her. Alone as I was before I met her.
ROBERT.
[Rubs his hands nervously.] A nice little load on my conscience!
RICHARD.
[Abstractedly.] You met my son when you came to my house this afternoon. He told me. What did you feel?
ROBERT.
[Promptly.] Pleasure.
RICHARD.
Nothing else?
ROBERT.
Nothing else. Unless I thought of two things at the same time. I am like that. If my best friend lay in his coffin and his face had a comic expression I should smile. [With a little gesture of despair.] I am like that. But I should suffer too, deeply.
RICHARD.
You spoke of conscience… Did he seem to you a child only—or an angel?
ROBERT.
[Shakes his head.] No. Neither an angel nor an Anglo-Saxon. Two things, by the way, for which I have very little sympathy.
RICHARD.
Never then? Never even… with her? Tell me. I wish to know.
ROBERT.
I feel in my heart something different. I believe that on the last day (if it ever comes), when we are all assembled together, that the Almighty will speak to us like this. We will say that we lived chastely with one other creature…
RICHARD.
[Bitterly.] Lie to Him?
ROBERT.
Or that we tried to. And He will say to us: Fools! Who told you that you were to give yourselves to one being only? You were made to give yourselves to many freely. I wrote that law with My finger on your hearts.
RICHARD.
On woman’s heart, too?
ROBERT.
Yes. Can we close our heart against an affection which we feel deeply? Should we close it? Should she?
RICHARD.
We are speaking of bodily union.
ROBERT.
Affection between man and woman must come to that. We think too much of it because our minds are warped. For us today it is of no more consequence than any other form of contact—than a kiss.
RICHARD.
If it is of no consequence why are you dissatisfied till you reach that end? Why were you waiting here tonight?
ROBERT.
Passion tends to go as far as it can; but, you may believe me or not, I had not that in my mind—to reach that end.
RICHARD.
Reach it if you can. I will use no arm against you that the world puts in my hand. If the law which God’s finger has written on our hearts is the law you say I too am God’s creature.
[He rises and paces to and fro some moments in silence. Then he goes towards the porch and leans against the jamb. Robert watches him.]
ROBERT.
I always felt it. In myself and in others.
RICHARD.
[Absently.] Yes?
ROBERT.
[With a vague gesture.] For all. That a woman, too, has the right to try with many men until she finds love. An immoral idea, is it not? I wanted to write a book about it. I began it…
RICHARD.
[As before.] Yes?
ROBERT.
Because I knew a woman who seemed to me to be doing that—carrying out that idea in her own life. She interested me very much.
RICHARD.
When was this?
ROBERT.
O, not lately. When you were away.
[Richard leaves his place rather abruptly and again paces to and fro.]
ROBERT.
You see, I am more honest than you thought.
RICHARD.
I wish you had not thought of her now—whoever she was, or is.
ROBERT.
[Easily.] She was and is the wife of a stockbroker.
RICHARD.
[Turning.] You know him?
ROBERT.
Intimately.
[Richard sits down again in the same place and leans forward, his head on his hands.]
ROBERT.
[Moving his chair a little closer.] May I ask you a question?
RICHARD.
You may.
ROBERT.
[With some hesitation.] Has it never happened to you in these years—I mean when you were away from her, perhaps, or travelling—to… betray her with another. Betray her, I mean, not in love. Carnally, I mean… Has that never happened?
RICHARD.
It has.
ROBERT.
And what did you do?
RICHARD.
[As before.] I remember the first time. I came home. It was night. My house was silent. My little son was sleeping in his cot. She, too, was asleep. I wakened her from sleep and told her. I cried beside her bed; and I pierced her heart.
ROBERT.
O, Richard, why did you do that?
RICHARD.
Betray her?
ROBERT.
No. But tell her, waken her from sleep to tell her. It was piercing her heart.
RICHARD.
She must know me as I am.
ROBERT.
But that is not you as you are. A moment of weakness.
RICHARD.
[Lost in thought.] And I was feeding the flame of her innocence with my guilt.
ROBERT.
[Brusquely.] O, don’t talk of guilt and innocence. You have made her all that she is. A strange and wonderful personality—in my eyes, at least.
RICHARD.
[Darkly.] Or I have killed her.
ROBERT.
Killed her?
RICHARD.
The virginity of her soul.
ROBERT.
[Impatiently.] Well lost! What would she be without you?
RICHARD.
I tried to give her a new life.
ROBERT.
And you have. A new and rich life.
RICHARD.
Is it worth what I have taken from her—her girlhood, her laughter, her young beauty, the hopes in her young heart?
ROBERT.
[Firmly.] Yes. Well worth it. [He looks at Richard for some moments in silence.] If you had neglected her, lived wildly, brought her away so far only to make her suffer…
[He stops. Richard raises his head and looks at him.]
RICHARD.
If I had?
ROBERT.
[Slightly confused.] You know there were rumours here of your life abroad—a wild life. Some persons who knew you or met you or heard of you in Rome. Lying rumours.
RICHARD.
[Coldly.] Continue.
ROBERT.
[Laughs a little harshly.] Even I at times thought of her as a victim. [Smoothly.] And of course, Richard, I felt and knew all the time that you were a man of great talent—of something more than talent. And that was your excuse—a valid one in my eyes.
RICHARD.
Have you thought that it is perhaps now—at this moment—that I am neglecting her? [He clasps his hands nervously and leans across toward Robert.] I may be silent still. And she may yield to you at last—wholly and many times.
ROBERT.
[Draws back at once.] My dear Richard, my dear friend, I swear to you I could not make you suffer.
RICHARD.
[Continuing.] You may then know in soul and body, in a hundred forms, and ever restlessly, what some old theologian, Duns Scotus, I think, called a death of the spirit.
ROBERT.
[Eagerly.] A death. No; its affirmation! A death! The supreme instant of life from which all coming life proceeds, the eternal law of nature herself.
RICHARD.
And that other law of nature, as you call it: change. How will it be when you turn against her and against me; when her beauty, or what seems so to you now, wearies you and my affection for you seems false and odious?
ROBERT.
That will never be. Never.
RICHARD.
And you turn even against yourself for having known me or trafficked with us both?
ROBERT.
[Gravely.] It will never be like that, Richard. Be sure of that.
RICHARD.
[Contemptuously.] I care very little whether it is or not because there is something I fear much more.
ROBERT.
[Shakes his head.] You fear? I disbelieve you, Richard. Since we were boys together I have followed your mind. You do not know what moral fear is.
RICHARD.
[Lays his hand on his arm.] Listen. She is dead. She lies on my bed. I look at her body which I betrayed—grossly and many times. And loved, too, and wept over. And I know that her body was always my loyal slave. To me, to me only she gave… [He breaks off and turns aside, unable to speak.]
ROBERT.
[Softly.] Do not suffer, Richard. There is no need. She is loyal to you, body and soul. Why do you fear?
RICHARD.
[Turns towards him, almost fiercely.] Not that fear. But that I will reproach myself then for having taken all for myself because I would not suffer her to give to another what was hers and not mine to give, because I accepted from her her loyalty and made her life poorer in love. That is my fear. That I stand between her and any moments of life that should be hers, between her and you, between her and anyone, between her and anything. I will not do it. I cannot and I will not. I dare not.
[He leans back in his chair breathless, with shining eyes. Robert rises quietly, and stands behind his chair.]
ROBERT.
Look here, Richard. We have said all there is to be said. Let the past be past.
RICHARD.
[Quickly and harshly.] Wait. One thing more. For you, too, must know me as I am—now.
ROBERT.
More? Is there more?
RICHARD.
I told you that when I saw your eyes this afternoon I felt sad. Your humility and confusion, I felt, united you to me in brotherhood. [He
