ROGERS. ‘I think we must all want to be alone after such an evening. I shall say good-night, Mrs. Don.’
MAJOR. ‘Same here. I go your way, Rogers, but you will find me a silent companion. One doesn’t want to talk ordinary things to-night. Rather not. Thanks, awfully.’
ROGERS. ‘Good-night, Don. It’s a pity, you know; a bit hard on your wife.’
MR. DON. ‘Good-night, Rogers. Good-night, Major.’
The husband and wife, left together, have not much to say to each other. He is depressed because he has spoilt things for her. She is not angry. She knows that he can’t help being as he is, and that there are fine spaces in her mind where his thoughts can never walk with hers. But she would forgive him seventy times seven because he is her husband. She is standing looking at a case of fishing-rods against the wall. There is a Jock Scott still sticking in one of them. Mr. Don says, as if somehow they were evidence against him:
‘Dick’s fishing-rods.’
She says forgivingly, ‘I hope you don’t mind my keeping them in the studio, Robert. They are sacred things to me.’
‘That’s all right, Grace.’
‘I think I shall go to Laura now.’
‘Yes,’ in his inexpressive way.