ST. OLPHERTS. The public.
LUCAS. The public?
ST. OLPHERTS. Come, you know well enough that unostentatious
immodesty is no part of your partner's programme. Of course, you
will find yourself by-and-bye in a sort of perpetual parade with
your crack-brained visionary--
LUCAS. You shall not speak of her so! You shall not.
ST. OLPHERTS. [Unconcernedly.] Each of you bearing a pole of the soiled
banner of Free Union. Free Union for the People! Ho, my dear Lucas!
LUCAS. Good heavens, Duke, do you imagine, now that I am in sound
health and mind again, that I don't see the hideous absurdity of these
views of hers?
ST. OLPHERTS. Then why the deuce don't you listen a little more
patiently to my views?
LUCAS. No, no. I tell you I intend to keep faith with her, as far as I
am able. She's so earnest, so pitiably earnest. If I broke faith with
her entirely, it would be too damnably cowardly.
ST. OLPHERTS. Cowardly!
LUCAS. [Pacing the room agitatedly.] Besides, we shall do well
together, after all, I believe--she and I. In the end we shall make
concessions to each other and settle down, somewhere abroad,
peacefully.
ST. OLPHERTS. Ha! And they called you a Coming Man at one time, didn't
they?
LUCAS. Oh, I--I shall make as fine a career with my pen as that other
career would have been. At any rate, I ask you to leave me to it all--
to leave me!
[FORTUNE enters. The shades of evening have now deepened; the glow of
sunset comes into the room.]
FORTUNE. I beg your pardon, sir.
LUCAS. Well?
FORTUNE. It is pas' ze time for you to dress for dinner.