SIR HARRY. [In the scales.] Twelve pounds!
KATE. That is your value to a woman. If she can't make it she has to stick to you.
SIR HARRY. [Remembering perhaps a rectory garden.] You valued me at more than that when you married me.
KATE. [Seeing it also.] Ah, I didn't know you then. If only you had been a man, Harry.
SIR HARRY. A man? What do you mean by a man?
KATE. [Leaving the garden.] Haven't you heard of them? They are something fine; and every woman is loath to admit to herself that her husband is not one. When she marries, even though she has been a very trivial person, there is in her some vague stirring toward a worthy life, as well as a fear of her capacity for evil. She knows her chance lies in him. If there is something good in him, what is good in her finds it, and they join forces against the baser parts. So I didn't give you up willingly, Harry. I invented all sorts of theories to explain you. Your hardness—I said it was a fine want of mawkishness. Your coarseness—I said it goes with strength. Your contempt for the weak—I called it virility. Your want of ideals was clear-sightedness. Your ignoble views of women—I tried to think them funny. Oh, I clung to you to save myself. But I had to let go; you had only the one quality, Harry, success; you had it so strong that it swallowed all the others.
SIR HARRY. [Not to be diverted from the main issue.] How did you earn that twelve pounds?
KATE. It took me nearly six months; but I earned it fairly. [She presses her hand on the typewriter as lovingly as many a woman has pressed a rose.] I learned this. I hired it and taught myself. I got some work through a friend, and with my first twelve pounds I paid for my machine. Then I considered that I was free to go, and I went.
SIR HARRY. All this going on in my house while you were living in the lap of luxury! [She nods.] By God, you were determined.
KATE. [Briefly.] By God, I was.