ISOBEL (proudly). Has it been worth it?
ROYCE (puzzled). I don’t know. It’s difficult to say. The world would think so; but I—naturally I am prejudiced.
ISOBEL. Yes.
ROYCE (smiling). You might have looked after me for those eighteen years.
ISOBEL. Did you want it as much as he? (As he protests) No, I don’t mean “want” it—need it?
ROYCE. Well, that’s always the problem, isn’t it—whether the old or the young have the better right to be selfish. We both needed you, in different ways. You gave yourself to him, and he has wasted your life. I don’t think I should have wasted it.
ISOBEL. I am proud to have helped him. No one will know. Everything which he wrote will be his. Only I shall know how much of it was mine. Well, that’s something. Not wasted.
ROYCE. Sacrificed.
ISOBEL. Am I to regret that?
ROYCE. Do you regret it?