Margaret. You don't mean it!
Gilbert. Yes ... And now listen to this one statement I owe to you: at the very time when you were beginning to turn away from me, when you felt this drawing toward the stable—la nostalgie de l'écurie—I was realizing that at heart I was done with you.
Margaret. No ...!
Gilbert. It's quite characteristic, Margaret, that you hadn't the least perception of it. Yes, I was done with you. I simply didn't need you any more. What you could give me, you had given me; you had fulfilled your function. You knew in the depths of your heart, you knew unconsciously ... that your day was over. Our relation had achieved its purpose; I do not regret having loved you.
Margaret. I do!
Gilbert. That's splendid! In that one small observation lies, for the connoisseur, the whole deep distinction between the true artist and the dilettante. To you, Margaret, our relation is today nothing more than the recollection of a few mad nights, a few deep talks of an evening in the alleys of the English Garden; I have made of it a work of art.
Margaret. So have I.
Gilbert. How so? What do you mean?
Margaret. What you've succeeded in doing, if you please, I've succeeded in doing too. I also have written a novel in which our former relations play a part, in which our former love—or what we called by that name—is preserved to eternity.
Gilbert. If I were in your place, I wouldn't say anything about eternity until the second edition was out.