RITA. Well, then, let us have crowds of people about us! Keep open house! Plunge into something that can deaden and dull our thoughts!
ALLMERS. Such a life would be impossible for me.—No,—rather than that, I would try to take up my work again.
RITA. [Bitingly.] Your work—the work that has always stood like a dead wall between us!
ALLMERS. [Slowly, looking fixedly at her.] There must always be a dead wall between us two, from this time forth.
RITA. Why must there—?
ALLMERS. Who knows but that a child's great, open eyes are watching us day and night.
RITA. [Softly, shuddering.] Alfred—how terrible to think of!
ALLMERS. Our love has been like a consuming fire. Now it must be quenched—
RITA. [With a movement towards him.] Quenched!
ALLMERS. [Hardly.] It is quenched—in one of us.