MORELL. Forgive you for what?
CANDIDA (realizing how stupid he is, and a little disappointed, though quite tenderly so). Don't you understand? (He shakes his head. She turns to him again, so as to explain with the fondest intimacy.) I mean, will he forgive me for not teaching him myself? For abandoning him to the bad women for the sake of my goodness—my purity, as you call it? Ah, James, how little you understand me, to talk of your confidence in my goodness and purity! I would give them both to poor Eugene as willingly as I would give my shawl to a beggar dying of cold, if there were nothing else to restrain me. Put your trust in my love for you, James, for if that went, I should care very little for your sermons—mere phrases that you cheat yourself and others with every day. (She is about to rise.)
MORELL. HIS words!
CANDIDA (checking herself quickly in the act of getting up, so that she is on her knees, but upright). Whose words?
MORELL. Eugene's.
CANDIDA (delighted). He is always right. He understands you; he understands me; he understands Prossy; and you, James—you understand nothing. (She laughs, and kisses him to console him. He recoils as if stung, and springs up.)
MORELL. How can you bear to do that when—oh, Candida (with anguish in his voice) I had rather you had plunged a grappling iron into my heart than given me that kiss.
CANDIDA (rising, alarmed). My dear: what's the matter?
MORELL (frantically waving her off). Don't touch me.
CANDIDA (amazed). James!