e scare you,
perhaps?

ST. OLPHERTS. Ha, ha! Don't be too rough.

AGNES. Come, Duke, confess--isn't there more sanity in me than you
suspected?

ST. OLPHERTS. [In a low voice, eyeing her.] Much more. I think you are
very clever.

[LUCAS quietly re-enters the room; he halts upon seeing that ST.
OLPHERTS still lingers.]

ST. OLPHERTS. [With a wave of the hand to LUCAS.] Just off, dear
fellow. [He offers his hand to AGNES; she quickly places hers behind
her back.] You--you are charming. [He walks to the door, then looks
round at the pair.] Au'voir! [ST. OLPHERTS goes out.]

AGNES. Au'voir! [Her hand drooping suddenly, her voice hard and dull.]
You had better take me to Fulici's before we dine, and buy me some
gloves.

LUCAS. [Coming to her, and seizing her hand.] Agnes dear!

AGNES. [Releasing herself and sitting with a heavy, almost sullen, look
upon her face.] Are you satisfied?

LUCAS. [By her side.] You have delighted me! How sweet you look--

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!

AGNES. I declared it to be untrue. Oh, but--

LUCAS. But--but--

AGNES. [Rising, seizing his arm.] The picture he paints of you is not
wholly a false one. Sssh! Lucas. Hark! Attend to me! I resign myself to
it all! Dear, I must resign myself to it!

LUCAS. Resign yourself? Has life with me become so distasteful?

AGNES. Has it? Think! Why, when I realised the actual terms of our
companionship--why didn't I go on my own way stoically