COLONEL, petting her, ‘There, there, you foolish woman. Joy will come in the morning; I never was surer of anything. Would you like me to take you home now?’ ALICE. ‘Home. But, yes, I--let us go home.’ COLONEL. ‘Can we have a cab, Steve?’ STEVE. ‘I’ll go down and whistle one. Alice, I’m awfully sorry that you--that I--’ ALICE. ‘Please, a cab.’ But though she is alone with her husband now she does not know what she wants to say to him. She has a passionate desire that he should not learn who is behind that door. COLONEL, pulling her toward him, ‘I think it is about Amy that you worry most.’ ALICE. ‘Why should I, Robert?’ COLONEL. ‘Not a jot of reason.’ ALICE. ‘Say again, Robert, that everything is sure to come right just as we planned it would.’ COLONEL. ‘Of course it will.’ ALICE. ‘Robert, there is something I want to tell you. You know how dear my children are to me, but Amy is the dearest of all. She is dearer to me, Robert, than you yourself.’ COLONEL. ‘Very well, memsahib.’ ALICE. ‘Robert dear, Amy has come to a time in her life when she is neither quite a girl nor quite a woman. There are dark places before us at that age through which we have to pick our way without much help. I can conceive dead mothers haunting those places to watch how their child is to fare in them. Very frightened ghosts, Robert. I have thought so long of how I was to be within hail of my girl at this time, holding her hand--my Amy, my child.’ COLONEL. ‘That is just how it is all to turn out, my Alice.’ ALICE, shivering, ‘Yes, isn’t it, isn’t it?’ COLONEL. ‘You dear excitable, of course it is.’ ALICE, like one defying him, ‘But even though it were not, though I had come back too late, though my daughter had become a woman without a mother’s guidance, though she were a bad woman--’ COLONEL. ‘Alice.’ ALICE. ‘Though some cur of a man--Robert, it wouldn’t affect my love for her, I should love her more than ever. If all others turned from her, if you turned from her, Robert--how I should love her then.’ COLONEL. ‘Alice, don’t talk of such things.’ But she continues to talk of them, for she sees that the door is ajar, and what she says now is really to comfort Amy. Every word of it is a kiss for Amy. ALICE, smiling through her fears, ‘I was only telling you that nothing could make any difference in my love for Amy. That was all; and, of course, if she has ever been a little foolish, light-headed--at that age one often is--why, a mother would soon put all that right; she would just take her girl in her arms and they would talk it over, and the poor child’s troubles would vanish.’ Still for Amy’s comfort, ‘And do you think I should repeat any of Amy’s confidences to you, Robert?’ Gaily, ‘Not a word, sir! She might be sure of that.’ COLONEL. ‘A pretty way to treat a father. But you will never persuade me that there is any serious flaw in Amy.’ ALICE. ‘I’ll never try, dear.’