ALLMERS. Hated me—!
RITA. Yes—when you shut yourself up in your room and brooded over your work—till long, long into the night. [Plaintively.] So long, so late, Alfred. Oh, how I hated your work!
ALLMERS. But now I have done with that.
RITA. [With a cutting laugh.] Oh yes! Now you have given yourself up to something worse.
ALLMERS. [Shocked.] Worse! Do you call our child something worse?
RITA. [Vehemently.] Yes, I do. As he comes between you and me, I call him so. For the book—the book was not a living being, as the child is. [With increasing impetuosity.] But I won't endure it, Alfred! I will not endure it—I tell you so plainly!
ALLMERS. [Looks steadily at her, and says in a low voice.] I am often almost afraid of you, Rita.
RITA. [Gloomily.] I am often afraid of myself. And for that very reason you must not awake the evil in me.
ALLMERS. Why, good Heavens, do I do that?
RITA. Yes, you do—when you tear to shreds the holiest bonds between us.