_Miss Ramsey_, with the effect of cold surprise: "Mr. Ashley? I
thought I heard-- Wasn't Miss Garnett--"
_Ashley_: "She was. Did you think it was the street door closing on
_me_?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "How should I know?" Then, courageously: "No, I didn't
think it was. Why do you ask?" She moves uneasily about the room, with
an air of studied inattention.
_Ashley_: "Because if you did, I can put you in the right, though I
can't restore Miss Garnett's presence by my absence."
_Miss Ramsey_: "You're rather--enigmatical." A ring is heard; the maid
pauses at the doorway. "I'm not at home, Nora." To Mr. Ashley: "It
seems to be very close--"
_Ashley_: "It's my having been smoking."
_Miss Ramsey_: "_Your_ having?" She goes to the window and tries to
lift it.
_Ashley_: "Let _me_." He follows her to the window, where he stands
beside her.
_Miss Ramsey_: "Now, she's seen me! And you here with me. Of course--"
_Ashley_: "I shouldn't mind. But I'm so sorry if--and I will go."
_Miss Ramsey_: "You can't go now--till she's round the corner. She'll
keep looking back, and she'll think I made you."
_Ashley_: "But haven't you? Aren't you sending me back to Miss Fray to
tell her that I must keep my engagement, though I care nothing for
her, and care all the world for you? Isn't that what you want me to
do?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "But you're not engaged to her! You just--"
_Ashley_: "Just what?"
_Miss Ramsey_, desperately: "You wish me to disgrace myself forever in
your eyes. Well, I will; what does it matter now? I heard you telling
Esther you were not engaged. I _overheard_ you."
_Ashley_: "I fancied you must."
_Miss Ramsey_: "I _tried_ to overhear! I _eavesdropped_! I wish you to
know that."
_Ashley_: "And what do you wish me to do about it?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "I should think any self-respecting person would know.
I'm _not_ a self-respecting person." Her wandering gaze seems to fall
for the first time upon the tray with the cocktails and glasses and
cigarettes; she flies at the bell-button and presses it impetuously.
As the maid appears: "Take these things away, Nora, please!" To Ashley
when the maid has left the room: "Don't be afraid to say what you
think of me!"
_Ashley_: "I think all the world of you. But I should merely like to
ask--"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, you can ask anything of me now!"
_Ashley_, with palpable insincerity: "I should like to ask why you
don't respect yourself?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Was that what you were going to ask? I know it wasn't.
But I will tell you. Because I have been a fool."
_Ashley_: "Thank you. Now I will tell you what I was really going to
ask. Why did you wish to drive me back to Miss Fray when you knew that
I would be false to her a thousand times if I could only once be true
to you?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Now you _are_ insulting me! And that is just the
point. You may be a very clever lawyer, Mr. Ashley, and everybody says
you are--very able, and talented, and all that, but you can't get
round that point. You may torture any meaning you please out of my
words, but I shall always say you brought it on yourself."
_Ashley_: "Brought what on?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Mr. Ashley! I won't be cross-questioned."
_Ashley_: "Was that why you smoked, and poured cocktails out of an
unopened bottle? Was it because you wished me to hate you, and
remember my duty, and go back to Miss Fray? Well, it was a dead
failure. It made me love you more than ever. I am a fool too, as you
call it."
_Miss Ramsey_: "Say anything you please. I have given you the right. I
shall not resent it. Go on."
_Ashley_: "I should only repeat myself. You must have known how much I
care for you, Isobel. Do you mind my calling you Isobel?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Not in the least if you wish to humiliate me by it. I
should like you to trample on me in every way you can."
_Ashley_: "Trample on you? I would rather be run over by a
steam-roller than tread on the least of your outlying feelings,
dearest. Do you mind my saying dearest?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "I have told you that you can say anything you like. I
deserve it. But oh, if you have a spark of pity--"
_Ashley_: "I'm a perfect conflagration of compassion, darling. Do you
object to darling?"
_Miss Ramsey_, with starting tears: "It doesn't matter now." She has
let her lovely length trail into the corner of the sofa, where she
desperately reclines, supporting her elbow on the arm of it, and
resting her drooping head on her hand. He draws a hassock up in front
of her, and sits on it.
_Ashley_: "This represents kneeling at your feet. One doesn't do it
literally any more, you know."
_Miss Ramsey_, in a hollow voice: "I should despise you if you did,
and"--deeply murmurous--"I don't _wish_ to despise you."
_Ashley_: "No, I understand that. You merely wish _me_ to despise
_you_. But why?"
_Miss Ramsey_, nervously: "You know."
_Ashley_: "But I don't know--Isobel, dearest, darling, if you will
allow me to express myself so fully. _How_ should I know?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "I've told you."
_Ashley_: "May I take your hand? For good-by!" He possesses himself of
it. "It seems to go along with those expressions."
_Miss Ramsey_, self-contemptuously: "Oh yes."
_Ashley_: "Thank you. Where were we?"
_Miss Ramsey_, sitting up and recovering her hand: "You were saying
good-by--"
_Ashley_: "Was I? But not before I had told you that I knew you were
doing all that for my best good, and I wish--I _wish_ you could have
seen how exemplary you looked when you were trying to pour a cocktail
out of a corked bottle, between your remarks on passionate fiction and
puffs of the insidious cigarette! When the venomous tobacco began to
get in its deadly work, and you turned pale and reeled a little, and
called for air, it made me mentally vow to go back to Miss Fray
instantly, whether I was engaged to her or not, and cut out poor old
Brooks--"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Was it Mr. Brooks? I didn't hear the name exactly."
_Ashley_: "When I was telling Miss Garnett? I ought to have spoken
louder, but I wasn't sure at the time you were listening. Though as
you were saying, what does it matter now?"
_Miss Ramsey_: "Did I say that?"
_Ashley_: "Words to that effect. And they have made me feel how
unworthy of you I am. I'm not heroic--by nature. But I could be, if
you made me--by art--"
_Miss Ramsey_, springing to her feet indignantly: "Now, you are
ridiculing me--you are making fun of me."
_Ashley_, gathering himself up from his hassock with difficulty, and
confronting her: "Do I look like a man who would dare to make fun of
you? I am half a head shorter than you, and in moral grandeur you
overtop me so that I would always have to wear a high hat when I was
with you."
_Miss Ramsey_, thoughtfully: "Plenty of girls are that way, now. But
if you are ashamed of my being tall--" Flashingly, and with starting
tears.
_Ashley_: "Ashamed! I can always look up to you, you can always stoop
to me!" He stretches his arms toward her.
_Miss Ramsey_, recoiling bewildered: "Wait! We haven't got to that
yet."
_Ashley_: "Oh, Isobel--dearest--darling! We've got past it! We're on
the home stretch, now."