DIST. V. Oh, don't say that! Nor can I agree, either. No use? Your good word is a power we still depend on. No, Chamberlain, we cannot do without you.
CHAMBERLAIN. You did—when you accepted my resignation.
DIST. V. For a fixed and an agreed purpose. In a way that only bound us more closely.
CHAMBERLAIN. I thought so then. But it has turned out differently.
DIST. V. Has it? I should not have said so. Am I not to count on you still?
CHAMBERLAIN. As a diminishing force? Yes; I shan't disappoint you.
DIST. V. Oh! (Deprecatingly, as of something that need not have been said.) But not that at all!
CHAMBERLAIN (rubbing it in). Necessarily: one who, as I said, can only look backward. Forward, I am nothing. Believe me, I have measured myself at last. This is no miscalculation—like the other.
DIST. V. The other?
CHAMBERLAIN. My resignation.