MR. MORLAND. Who else?
MARY ROSE. I am most afraid of my daddy.
MR. MORLAND (rather flattered). Of me?
(If there is anything strange about this girl of eighteen who steps from the tree into the room, it is an elusiveness of which she is unaware. It has remained hidden from her girl friends, though in the after years, in the brief space before they forget her, they will probably say, because of what happened, that there was always something a little odd about MARY ROSE. This oddness might be expressed thus, that the happiness and glee of which she is almost overfull know of another attribute of her that never plays with them.
There is nothing splendid about MARY ROSE, never can she become one of those secret women so much less innocent than she, yet perhaps so much sweeter in the kernel, who are the bane or glory, or the bane and glory, of greater lovers than she could ever understand. She is just a rare and lovely flower, far less fitted than those others for the tragic rôle.
She butts her head into MRS. MORLAND with a childish impulsiveness that might overthrow a less accustomed bosom.)
MARY ROSE (telling everything). Mother!
MR. MORLAND. You don’t mean that anything has really frightened you, Mary Rose?
MARY ROSE. I am not sure. Hold me tight, Mother.
MRS. MORLAND. Darling, has Simon been disturbing you?