AGNES. Ah--!
LUCAS. You shall have twenty new gowns now; you shall see the women
envying you, the men envying me. Ah, ha! Fifty new gowns! You will wear
them?
AGNES. Yes.
LUCAS. Why, what has brought about this change in you?
AGNES. What!
LUCAS. What?
AGNES. I know.
LUCAS. You know?
AGNES. Exactly how you regard me.
LUCAS. I don't understand you.
AGNES. Listen. Long ago, in Florence, I began to suspect that we had
made a mistake, Lucas. Even there I began to suspect that your nature
was not one to allow you to go through life sternly, severely, looking
upon me more and more each day as a fellow worker and less and less as
--a woman. I suspected this--oh, proved it!--but still made myself
believe that this companionship of ours would gradually become, in a
sense, colder--more temperate, more impassive. [Beating her brow.]
Never! never! Oh, a few minutes ago this man, who means to part us if
he can, drew your character, disposition, in a dozen words.
LUCAS. You believe him! You credit what he says of me!