CANDIDA (realizing how stupid he is, and a little disappointed, though quite tenderly so). Don't you understand? (He shakes his head. She turns to him again, so as to explain with the fondest intimacy.) I mean, will he forgive me for not teaching him myself? For abandoning him to the bad women for the sake of my goodness--my purity, as you call it? Ah, James, how little you understand me, to talk of your confidence in my goodness and purity! I would give them both to poor Eugene as willingly as I would give my shawl to a beggar dying of cold, if there were nothing else to restrain me. Put your trust in my love for you, James, for if that went, I should care very little for your sermons--mere phrases that you cheat yourself and others with every day. (She is about to rise.) MORELL. HIS words! CANDIDA (checking herself quickly in the act of getting up, so that she is on her knees, but upright). Whose words? MORELL. Eugene's. CANDIDA (delighted). He is always right. He understands you; he understands me; he understands Prossy; and you, James--you understand nothing. (She laughs, and kisses him to console him. He recoils as if stung, and springs up.) MORELL. How can you bear to do that when--oh, Candida (with anguish in his voice) I had rather you had plunged a grappling iron into my heart than given me that kiss. CANDIDA (rising, alarmed). My dear: what's the matter? MORELL (frantically waving her off). Don't touch me. CANDIDA (amazed). James! (They are interrupted by the entrance of Marchbanks, with Burgess, who stops near the door, staring, whilst Eugene hurries forward between them.) MARCHBANKS. Is anything the matter? MORELL (deadly white, putting an iron constraint on himself). Nothing but this: that either you were right this morning, or Candida is mad. BURGESS (in loudest protest). Wot! Candy mad too! Oh, come, come, come! (He crosses the room to the fireplace, protesting as he goes, and knocks the ashes out of his pipe on the bars. Morell sits down desperately, leaning forward to hide his face, and interlacing his fingers rigidly to keep them steady.) CANDIDA (to Morell, relieved and laughing). Oh, you're only shocked! Is that all? How conventional all you unconventional people are! BURGESS. Come: be'ave yourself, Candy. What'll Mr. Morchbanks think of you? CANDIDA. This comes of James teaching me to think for myself, and never to hold back out of fear of what other people may think of me. It works beautifully as long as I think the same things as he does. But now, because I have just thought something different!--look at him--just look! (She points to Morell, greatly amused. Eugene looks, and instantly presses his band on his heart, as if some deadly pain had shot through it, and sits down on the sofa like a man witnessing a tragedy.) BURGESS (on the hearth-rug). Well, James, you certainly ain't as himpressive lookin' as usu'l.