DAVID. Oh, let the solid ground Not fail beneath my feet, Before my life has found What some have found so sweet.
[This is not a soliloquy, but is offered as a definite statement. The players emerge from their game with difficulty.]
ALICK [with JAMES’s crown in his hand]. What’s that you’re saying, David?
DAVID [like a public speaker explaining the situation in a few well-chosen words]. The thing I’m speaking about is Love.
JAMES [keeping control of himself]. Do you stand there and say you’re in love, David Wylie?
DAVID. Me; what would I do with the thing?
JAMES [who is by no means without pluck]. I see no necessity for calling it a thing.
[They are two bachelors who all their lives have been afraid of nothing but Woman. DAVID in his sportive days—which continue—has done roguish things with his arm when conducting a lady home under an umbrella from a soiree, and has both chuckled and been scared on thinking of it afterwards. JAMES, a commoner fellow altogether, has discussed the sex over a glass, but is too canny to be in the company of less than two young women at a time.]
DAVID [derisively]. Oho, has she got you, James?
JAMES [feeling the sting of it]. Nobody has got me.