EUSTASIA (hurt). Nicholas!
NICHOLAS (inexorably). We are both young. I am twenty-six, you are——
EUSTASIA (hopefully). Twenty-five.
NICHOLAS (looking at her quickly and then away again). You are twenty-five. If all goes well, we may look to have fifty years more together. Say two thousand five hundred weeks. Multiply that by a hundred, and we see that in the course of our joint lives you will, at the present rate, force me to say “No, thank you, Eustasia,” two hundred and fifty thousand times more than is necessary. (He relights his pipe.)
EUSTASIA (pathetically). Nicholas! (She applies her handkerchief.)
NICHOLAS. I wondered if we couldn’t come to some arrangement about it. That’s all.
EUSTASIA. You’re cruel! Cruel! (She sobs piteously.)
[123]NICHOLAS (doggedly). I just wondered if we couldn’t come to some arrangement.
EUSTASIA (completely overcome). Oh! Oh! Nicholas! My darling!
(NICHOLAS, his hands clenched, looks grimly in front of him. He winces now and then at her sobs. He tries desperately hard not to give way, but in the end they are too much for him.)