LUCAS. What?
AGNES. I know.
LUCAS. You know?
AGNES. Exactly how you regard me.
LUCAS. I don't understand you.
AGNES. Listen. Long ago, in Florence, I began to suspect that we had made a mistake, Lucas. Even there I began to suspect that your nature was not one to allow you to go through life sternly, severely, looking upon me more and more each day as a fellow worker and less and less as —a woman. I suspected this—oh, proved it!—but still made myself believe that this companionship of ours would gradually become, in a sense, colder—more temperate, more impassive. [Beating her brow.] Never! never! Oh, a few minutes ago this man, who means to part us if he can, drew your character, disposition, in a dozen words.
LUCAS. You believe him! You credit what he says of me!
AGNES. I declared it to be untrue. Oh, but—
LUCAS. But—but—
AGNES. [Rising, seizing his arm.] The picture he paints of you is not wholly a false one. Sssh! Lucas. Hark! Attend to me! I resign myself to it all! Dear, I must resign myself to it!