in my bag. (_He takes
a small package out of his traveling bag_)

IRENE

Thanks. That's fine.

JULIAN

This is quite a new fancy of yours, however.

IRENE

Crackers...?

JULIAN

No, nature.

IRENE

How can you say so? I have always had a boundless love for nature.
Don't you recall the excursions we used to make? Don't you remember how
once we fell asleep in the woods on a hot Summer afternoon? And don't
you ever think of that shrine of the Holy Virgin, on the hill where we
were caught by the storm?... Oh, mercy! Nature is no silly illusion.
And still later--when I struck the bad days and wanted to kill myself
for your sake, fool that I was ... then nature simply proved my
salvation. Indeed, Julian! I could still show you the place where I
threw myself on the grass and wept. You have to walk ten minutes from
the station, through an avenue of acacias, and then on to the brook.
Yes, I threw myself on the grass and wept and wailed. It was one of
those days, you know, when you had again sent me packing from your
door. Well, and then, when I had been lying half an hour in the grass,
and had wept my fill, then I got up again--and began to scamper all
over the meadow. Just like a kid, all by myself. Then I wiped my eyes
and felt quite right again. (_Pause_) Of course, next morning I was at
your door again, setting up a howl, and then the story began all over
again.

[_It is growing dark._

JULIAN

Why do you still think of all that?

IRENE

But you do it, too. And who has proved the more stupid of us two in the
end? Who? Ask yourself, on your conscience. Who?... Have you been more
happy with anybody else than with me? Has anybody else clung to you as
I did? Has anybody else been so fond of you?... No, I am sure. And as
to that foolish affair into which I stumbled during my engagement
abroad--you might just as well have overlooked it. Really, there isn't
as much to that kind of thing as you men want to make out--when it
happens to one of us, that is to say. (_Both drink of their tea_)

JULIAN

Should I get some light?

IRENE

It's quite cosy in the twilight like this.

JULIAN

"Not much to it," you say. Perhaps you are right. But when it happens
to anybody, he gets pretty mad as a rule. And if we had made up
again--it would never have been as before. It's better as it is. When
the worst was over, we became good friends once more, and so we have
been ever since. And that is a pretty fine thing, t