ality]. I can hardly trust myself to say how much I like
it. The magic of this Irish scene, and--I really don't want to be
personal, Miss Reilly; but the charm of your Irish voice--

NORA [quite accustomed to gallantry, and attaching no seriousness
whatever to it]. Oh, get along with you, Mr Broadbent! You're
breaking your heart about me already, I daresay, after seeing me
for two minutes in the dark.

BROADBENT. The voice is just as beautiful in the dark, you know.
Besides, I've heard a great deal about you from Larry.

NORA [with bitter indifference]. Have you now? Well, that's a
great honor, I'm sure.

BROADBENT. I have looked forward to meeting you more than to
anything else in Ireland.

NORA [ironically]. Dear me! did you now?

BROADBENT. I did really. I wish you had taken half as much
interest in me.

NORA. Oh, I was dying to see you, of course. I daresay you can
imagine the sensation an Englishman like you would make among us
poor Irish people.

BROADBENT. Ah, now you're chaffing me, Miss Reilly: you know you
are. You mustn't chaff me. I'm very much in earnest about Ireland
and everything Irish. I'm very much in earnest about you and
about Larry.

NORA. Larry has nothing to do with me, Mr Broadbent.

BROADBENT. If I really thought that, Miss Reilly, I should--well,
I should let myself feel that charm of which I spoke just now
more deeply than I--than I--

NORA. Is it making love to me you are?

BROADBENT [scared and much upset]. On my word I believe I am,
Miss Reilly. If you say that to me again I shan't answer for
myself: all the harps of Ireland are in your voice. [She laughs
at him. He suddenly loses his head and seizes her arms, to her
great indignation]. Stop laughing: do you hear? I am in earnest--in
English earnest. When I say a thing like that to a woman, I
mean it. [Releasing her and trying to recover his ordinary manner
in spite of his bewildering emotion] I beg your pardon.

NORA. How dare you touch me?

BROADBENT. There are not many things I would not dare for you.
That does not sound right perhaps; but I really--[he stops and
passes his hand over his forehead, rather lost].

NORA. I think you ought to be ashamed. I think if you were a
gentleman, and me alone with you in this place at night, you
would die rather than do such a thing.

BROADBENT. You mean that it's an act of treachery to Larry?

NORA. Deed I don't. What has Larry to do with it? It's an act of
disrespect and rud