CLARE. Please don't, Dolly! Let me be!
MRS. FULLARTON. I must speak, Clare! I do think you're hard on George. It's generous of him to offer to withdraw the suit— considering. You do owe it to us to try and spare your father and your sisters and—and all of us who care for you.
CLARE. [Facing her] You say George is generous! If he wanted to be that he'd never have claimed these damages. It's revenge he wants—I heard him here. You think I've done him an injury. So I did—when I married him. I don't know what I shall come to, Dolly, but I shan't fall so low as to take money from him. That's as certain as that I shall die.
MRS. FULLARTON. Do you know, Clare, I think it's awful about you! You're too fine, and not fine enough, to put up with things; you're too sensitive to take help, and you're not strong enough to do without it. It's simply tragic. At any rate, you might go home to your people.
CLARE. After this!
MRS. FULLARTON. To us, then?
CLARE. "If I could be the falling bee, and kiss thee all the day!" No, Dolly!
MRS. FULLARTON turns from her ashamed and baffled, but her quick eyes take in the room, trying to seize on some new point of attack.
MRS. FULLARTON. You can't be—you aren't-happy, here?
CLARE. Aren't I?