Richard.
Beata! Beata! What can I say? What can I say? You know how I've always tried to keep our feeling for each other within the bounds--the bounds of-- You know how it was twelve years ago--when I found myself gradually slipping into intimacy with him, I came to you and said: "Either this thing ends here, or I tell him everything. I won't take his hand and play the sneak. If I do, we shall lose our respect for each other as well as our self-respect." And then we hit on this friendship as a way out of it--a way of not losing each other altogether. It wasn't a very honourable solution--but this--this new sacrifice--if I accept this--God! If Holtzmann were to come in now and tell me the other man has won, what a load he would take off my mind!
Beata.
Richard--how can you?
Richard.
Think of it: To-morrow I shall have to make that speech. My position, my convictions, compel me to appear as the spokesman of the highest ideals--and all the while I shall owe my seat to the friend whose holiest ties I have trampled on----
Beata.
And if they were not the holiest----?
Richard (startled).
Beata!