He. What? Why, friendship. We have found it possible to be frank in masks; why not out of them?
She. Then you propose a platonic friendship?
He. I want a woman who will be my friend, to whom I can talk freely. There are words a man has no power or wish to say to a man, yet which must be spoken or they fester in his mind.
She. I am, then, to be a safety-valve.
He. Every man must have a woman as a lodestar; you are to be that to me.
She. And your wife?
He. My wife? She voluntarily abandoned me. I haven’t seen her for three years; and surely she ought to cease to count by this time.
She. You are heartless.
He. Heartless?
She. You should be faithful to your lost—