ANNA--[Infuriated by his action--stridently.] You will too listen! [She leans over and pulls his hands from his ears--with hysterical rage.] You--keeping me safe inland--I wasn't no nurse girl the last two years--I lied when I wrote you--I was in a house, that's what!--yes, that kind of a house--the kind sailors like you and Mat goes to in port--and your nice inland men, too--and all men, God damn 'em! I hate 'em! Hate 'em! [She breaks into hysterical sobbing, throwing herself into the chair and hiding her face in her hands on the table. The two men have sprung to their feet.] CHRIS--[Whimpering like a child.] Anna! Anna! It's lie! It's lie! [He stands wringing his hands together and begins to weep.] BURKE--[His whole great body tense like a spring--dully and gropingly.] So that's what's in it! ANNA--[Raising her head at the sound of his voice--with extreme mocking bitterness.] I s'pose you remember your promise, Mat? No other reason was to count with you so long as I wasn't married already. So I s'pose you want me to get dressed and go ashore, don't you? [She laughs.] Yes, you do! BURKE--[On the verge of his outbreak--stammeringly.] God stiffen you! ANNA--[Trying to keep up her hard, bitter tone, but gradually letting a note of pitiful pleading creep in.] I s'pose if I tried to tell you I wasn't--that--no more you'd believe me, wouldn't you? Yes, you would! And if I told you that yust getting out in this barge, and being on the sea had changed me and made me feel different about things,'s if all I'd been through wasn't me and didn't count and was yust like it never happened--you'd laugh, wouldn't you? And you'd die laughing sure if I said that meeting you that funny way that night in the fog, and afterwards seeing that you was straight goods stuck on me, had got me to thinking for the first time, and I sized you up as a different kind of man--a sea man as different from the ones on land as water is from mud--and that was why I got stuck on you, too. I wanted to marry you and fool you, but I couldn't. Don't you see how I'd changed? I couldn't marry you with you believing a lie--and I was shamed to tell you the truth--till the both of you forced my hand, and I seen you was the same as all the rest. And now, give me a bawling out and beat it, like I can tell you're going to. [She stops, looking at BURKE. He is silent, his face averted, his features beginning to work with fury. She pleads passionately.] Will you believe it if I tell you that loving you has made me--clean? It's the straight goods, honest! [Then as he doesn't reply--bitterly.] Like hell you will! You're like all the rest!