Frances. Are you joking?
Trebell. Yes. If you want to spoil me find me a book to read.
Frances. What will you have?
Trebell. Huckleberry Finn. It's on a top shelf towards the end somewhere ... or should be.
She finds the book. On her way back with it she stops and shivers.
Frances. I don't think I shall sleep to-night. Poor Amy O'Connell!
Trebell. [Curiously.] Are you afraid of death?
Frances. [With humorous stoicism.] It will be the end of me, perhaps.
She gives him the book, with its red cover; the '86 edition, a boy's friend evidently. He fingers it familiarly.
Trebell. Thank you. Mark Twain's a jolly fellow. He has courage ... comic courage. That's what's wanted. Nothing stands against it. You be-little yourself by laughing ... then all this world and the last and the next grow little too ... and so you grow great again. Switch off some light, will you?