THE DOCTOR: You will to-morrow. THE HUSBAND: Margaret! Margaret! Wait for me there; I shall not fail to meet you in that hollow vale. THE DOCTOR: You will not be slow to survive her. THE HUSBAND: Christ have mercy upon us! THE DOCTOR: You would do better to think of the child. THE HUSBAND (_rising and standing menacingly over the cradle_): Is that the monster? THE DOCTOR: No worse than others. THE HUSBAND: Begotten in a night of immaculate pleasure, monster, may you live loveless, in dirt and impurity! THE DOCTOR: Conceived in lust and darkness, may your own impurity always seem heavenly, monster, in your own eyes! THE HUSBAND: Murderer, slowly die all your life long! THE DOCTOR: The child must be fed. THE HUSBAND: Fed? With what? THE DOCTOR: With milk. THE HUSBAND: Her milk is cold in her breasts. THE DOCTOR: There are still cows. THE HUSBAND: Tubercular shorthorns. (_Calling._) Let Short-i’-the-horn be brought! VOICES (_off_): Short-i’-the-horn! Short-i’-the-horn! (_Fadingly_) Short-i’-the.... THE DOCTOR: In nineteen hundred and twenty-one, twenty-seven thousand nine hundred and thirteen women died in childbirth. THE HUSBAND: But none of them belonged to my harem. THE DOCTOR: Each of them was somebody’s wife. THE HUSBAND: Doubtless. But the people we don’t know are only characters in the human comedy. We are the tragedians. THE DOCTOR: Not in the spectator’s eyes. THE HUSBAND: Do I think of the spectators? Ah, Margaret! Margaret!... THE DOCTOR: The twenty-seven thousand nine hundred and fourteenth. THE HUSBAND: The only one! THE DOCTOR: But here comes the cow. (_Short-i’-the-horn is led in by a Yokel._) THE HUSBAND: Ah, good Short-i’-the-horn! (_He pats the animal._) She was tested last week, was she not? THE YOKEL: Ay, sir. THE HUSBAND: And found tubercular. No? THE YOKEL: Even in the udders, may it please you. THE HUSBAND: Excellent! Milk me the cow, sir, into this dirty wash-pot. THE YOKEL: I will, sir. (_He milks the cow._) THE HUSBAND: Her milk—her milk is cold already. All the woman in her chilled and curdled within her breasts. Ah, Jesus! what miraculous galactagogue will make it flow again? THE YOKEL: The wash-pot is full, sir. THE HUSBAND: Then take the cow away. THE YOKEL: Come, Short-i’-the-horn; come up, good Short-i’-the-horn. (_He goes out with the cow._) THE HUSBAND (_pouring the milk into a long-tubed feeding-bottle_): Here’s for you, monster, to drink your own health in. (_He gives the bottle to the child._) CURTAIN. “A little ponderous, perhaps,” said Gumbril, as the curtain came down. “But I liked the cow.” Mrs. Viveash opened her cigarette-case and found it empty. Gumbril offered her one of his. She shook her head. “I don’t want it in the least,” she said.