Gil. Maybe.
Marg. You are a free man. You don't have to steal your hours devoted to artistic labor. And your future doesn't depend on the throw.
Gil. And you?
Marg. That's what I've done. Only a half hour ago Clement left me because I confessed to him that I had written a novel.
Gil. Left you—for good?
Marg. I don't know. But it isn't unlikely. He went away in a fit of anger. What he'll decide to do I can't say.
Gil. So he objects to your writing, does he? He can't bear to see his mistress put her intelligence to some use. Capital! And he represents the blood of the country! H'm! And you, you're not ashamed to give yourself up to the arms of an idiot of this sort, whom you once—
Marg. Don't you speak of him like that. You don't know him.
Gil. Ah!
Marg. You don't know why he objects to my writing. Purely out of love. He feels that if I go on I will be living in a world entirely apart from him. He blushes at the thought that I should make copy of the most sacred feelings of my soul for unknown people to read. It is his wish that I belong to him only, and that is why he dashed out—no, not dashed out—for Clement doesn't belong to the class that dashes out.