ISOBEL (after considering). When you asked me to marry you I—I couldn’t. He was an old man then; he wanted me; I was everything to him. Oh, he has had his friends, more friends than any man, but he had to be the head of a family too, and without me—I’ve kept him alive, active. He has sharpened his brains on me. (With a shrug) On whom else?
ROYCE. Yes, I understand that.
ISOBEL. You wouldn’t have married me and come to live with us all, as Marion and William have done?
ROYCE. No, no, that’s death.
ISOBEL. Yes, I knew you felt like that. But I [204]couldn’t leave him. (ROYCE shrugs his shoulders unconvinced.) Oh, I did love you then; I did want to marry you! But I couldn’t. He wasn’t just an ordinary man—you must remember that, please. He was Blayds.... Oh, what are we in the world for but to find beauty, and who could find it as he, and who could help him as I?
ROYCE. I was ready to wait.
ISOBEL. Ah, but how could we? Until he died! Every day you would be thinking, “I wonder how he is to-day,” and I should be knowing that you were thinking that. Oh, horrible! Sitting and waiting for his death.
ROYCE (thoughtfully, recognising her point of view). Yes.... Yes.... But if you were back now, knowing what you know, would you do it again?
ISOBEL. I think so. I think it has been worth it. It isn’t fair to ask me. I’m glad now that I have given him those eighteen years, but perhaps I should have been afraid of it if I had known it was to be as long as that. It has been trying, of course—such a very old man in body, although so young in mind—but it has not been for an old man that I have done it; not for a selfish father; but for the glorious young poet who has never grown up, and who wanted me.
ROYCE (looking into her soul). But you have had your bad moments.