BERTHA. [_Pressing her hand._] Goodbye then—for the present. BEATRICE. [_Disengaging her hand._] Good morning. BERTHA. I will see you to the gate. [_She accompanies her out through the double doors. They go down through the garden. Richard Rowan comes in from the study. He halts near the doors, looking down the garden. Then he turns away, comes to the little table, takes up the paper and reads. Bertha, after some moments, appears in the doorway and stands watching him till he has finished. He lays down the paper again and turns to go back to his study._] BERTHA. Dick! RICHARD. [_Stopping._] Well? BERTHA. You have not spoken to me. RICHARD. I have nothing to say. Have you? BERTHA. Do you not wish to know—about what happened last night? RICHARD. That I will never know. BERTHA. I will tell you if you ask me. RICHARD. You will tell me. But I will never know. Never in this world. BERTHA. [_Moving towards him._] I will tell you the truth, Dick, as I always told you. I never lied to you. RICHARD. [_Clenching his hands in the air, passionately._] Yes, yes. The truth! But I will never know, I tell you. BERTHA. Why, then, did you leave me last night? RICHARD. [_Bitterly._] In your hour of need. BERTHA. [_Threateningly._] You urged me to it. Not because you love me. If you loved me or if you knew what love was you would not have left me. For your own sake you urged me to it. RICHARD. I did not make myself. I am what I am. BERTHA. To have it always to throw against me. To make me humble before you, as you always did. To be free yourself. [_Pointing towards the garden._] With her! And that is your love! Every word you say is false. RICHARD. [_Controlling himself._] It is useless to ask you to listen to me. BERTHA. Listen to you! She is the person for listening. Why would you waste your time with me? Talk to her. RICHARD. [_Nods his head._] I see. You have driven her away from me now, as you drove everyone else from my side—every friend I ever had, every human being that ever tried to approach me. You hate her. BERTHA. [_Warmly._] No such thing! I think you have made her unhappy as you have made me and as you made your dead mother unhappy and killed her. Womankiller! That is your name. RICHARD. [_Turns to go._] _Arrivederci!_ BERTHA. [_Excitedly._] She is a fine and high character. I like her. She is everything that I am not—in birth and education. You tried to ruin her but you could not. Because she is well able for you—what I am not. And you know it. RICHARD. [_Almost shouting._] What the devil are you talking about her for? BERTHA. [_Clasping her hands._] O, how I wish I had never met you! How I curse that day! RICHARD. [_Bitterly._] I am in the way, is it? You would like to be free now. You have only to say the word. BERTHA. [_Proudly._] Whenever you like I am ready. RICHARD. So that you could meet your lover—freely? BERTHA. Yes. RICHARD. Night after night?