LUCAS. Good heavens, Duke, do you imagine, now that I am in sound health and mind again, that I don't see the hideous absurdity of these views of hers?
ST. OLPHERTS. Then why the deuce don't you listen a little more patiently to my views?
LUCAS. No, no. I tell you I intend to keep faith with her, as far as I am able. She's so earnest, so pitiably earnest. If I broke faith with her entirely, it would be too damnably cowardly.
ST. OLPHERTS. Cowardly!
LUCAS. [Pacing the room agitatedly.] Besides, we shall do well together, after all, I believe—she and I. In the end we shall make concessions to each other and settle down, somewhere abroad, peacefully.
ST. OLPHERTS. Ha! And they called you a Coming Man at one time, didn't they?
LUCAS. Oh, I—I shall make as fine a career with my pen as that other career would have been. At any rate, I ask you to leave me to it all— to leave me!
[FORTUNE enters. The shades of evening have now deepened; the glow of sunset comes into the room.]
FORTUNE. I beg your pardon, sir.
LUCAS. Well?