Henry—No, I suppose not, that is, not for her.
Kate—[Viciously.] Well, let me tell you, you haven’t inherited her beauty. Look at your hands—thick, hard, ugly—and the life lines in them like the life lines in the hands of every laborer digging sewers——
John—There’s something in that, but they are just beginning.
Kate—[Turning on them.] Look at you! You’re ugly, and clumsy, and uncouth. You grunt and roar, you wear abominable clothes—and you have no manners—and all because of your father, your mighty righteous and original father. You don’t have to be like this. You needn’t have little pigs’ eyes with bleached lashes, and thick hanging lips—and noses—but I suppose you’ve got adenoids, and you may suffer from the fact that your mother had a rupture, and in all probability you have the beginning of ulcers of the stomach, for God knows your father couldn’t keep a meal down like a gentleman!
Henry—He was delicate.
Kate—And why was he delicate? He called himself “The little Father,” as one might say, “The great Emperor.” Well, to have a father to whom you can go and say, “All is not as it should be”—that would have been everything. But what could you say to him, and what had he to say to you? Oh, we all have our pathetic moments of being at our best, but he wasn’t satisfied with that, he wanted to be at it all the time. And the result, the life of a mole. “Listen and say nothing.” Then he becomes the gentleman farmer because he discovers he cannot be the Beloved Fool. Suddenly he is the father of three creatures for all the world like Russian peasants—without an idea, a subtlety—it’s wicked, that’s all, wicked—and as for that, how do you know but that all three of you had a different mother? Why, great God, I might be the mother of one of you!
John—[Significantly.] So I believe, madam.
Kate—[Unheeding.] Do you think a man like your father had any right to bring such children as you into the world—three columns of flesh without one of the five senses! [She suddenly buries her head in her hands.]
John—[Gently.] You loved our father.
Henry—And you also had your pot of honey——