Gwen: Just one man, or more than one?
Margaret: More than one.
Gwen: Tell me about it, with all of them, please!
[A little smile breaks on Margaret’s lips, and the tiniest laugh. Perhaps the audience laughs louder; so much the better, for Gwen answers——
Gwen: Don’t laugh, please. I don’t mean it to be anything to laugh at. I ask because I want to know. Not about you, but about love. I’m ashamed to be as old as I am, and not know—You have knowledge, and I haven’t.... So will you tell me, please?
Margaret: Ask away.
Gwen: When you didn’t know anything at all, how did it first happen?
[A pause. Then:
Margaret (beginning slowly in recollection): A man I was doing some work for asked me to join a walking party in the Lakes. We started all together. Half-way through, he and I branched off to walk across a pass and meet the others on the other side. I don’t know whether he meant to meet them. I meant to. But we didn’t.
Gwen: What sort of a man was he?