MRS DUBEDAT. Oh, if I might be with you, Louis!
LOUIS. No: you must always be in the garden when the bush flames. You are my hold on the world: you are my immortality. Promise.
MRS DUBEDAT. I’m listening. I shall not forget. You know that I promise.
LOUIS. Well, thats about all; except that you are to hang my pictures at the one-man show. I can trust your eye. You wont let anyone else touch them.
MRS DUBEDAT. You can trust me.
LOUIS. Then theres nothing more to worry about, is there? Give me some more of that milk. I’m fearfully tired; but if I stop talking I shant begin again. [Sir Ralph gives him a drink. He takes it and looks up quaintly]. I say, B. B., do you think anything would stop you talking?
B. B. [almost unmanned] He confuses me with you, Paddy. Poor fellow! Poor fellow!
LOUIS [musing] I used to be awfully afraid of death; but now it’s come I have no fear; and I’m perfectly happy. Jennifer.
MRS DUBEDAT. Yes, dear?
LOUIS. I’ll tell you a secret. I used to think that our marriage was all an affectation, and that I’d break loose and run away some day. But now that I’m going to be broken loose whether I like it or not, I’m perfectly fond of you, and perfectly satisfied because I’m going to live as part of you and not as my troublesome self.