THE DEVIL

Dr. Agnus, please. (Indicating the light) The Dutchman is angry, too. He thinks it’s all right to blow up a building with a couple of hundred people in it. But to lift a hand against a woman “save in kindness”—oh, my!

[The light is suddenly still.

THE DEVIL

And you, doctor, vivisect dogs oblivious to their screams of agony. But you’d refuse to speak to the man who inflicted a harmless blow on his wife. Oh, you ridiculous humans!

AGNUS

Vivisection saves many a civilized man.

THE DEVIL

A blow at the right time saves many a civilized woman. Women have only begun to be civilized—since I posed as a woman once or twice: George Eliot, George Sand, and a few others. You don’t laugh this time as you did when I said I was Shakespeare and Shaw—

[Agnus wrings his hands and walks away.