MRS. MORLAND. Not at all. And as for the old Adam in you, dear Adam, there is still something of the old Eve in me. Our trip to Switzerland two years ago with Simon, I enjoyed every hour of it. The little card parties here, am I not called the noisy one; think of the girls I have chaperoned and teased and laughed with, just as if I had never had a girl myself. MR. MORLAND. Your brightness hasn’t been all pretence? MRS. MORLAND. No, indeed; I have passed through the valley of the shadow, dear, but I can say thankfully that I have come out again into the sunlight. (_A little tremulously._) I suppose it is all to the good that as the years go by the dead should recede farther from us. MR. MORLAND. Some say they don’t. MRS. MORLAND. You and I know better, James. MR. MORLAND. Up there in the misty Hebrides I dare say they think of her as on the island still. Fanny, how long is it since--since you half thought _that_ yourself? MRS. MORLAND. Ever so many years. Perhaps not the first year. I did cling for a time---- MR. MORLAND. The neighbours here didn’t like it. MRS. MORLAND. She wasn’t their Mary Rose, you see. MR. MORLAND. And yet her first disappearance---- MRS. MORLAND. It is all unfathomable. It is as if Mary Rose was just something beautiful that you and I and Simon had dreamt together. You have forgotten much, but so have I. Even that room--(_she looks towards the little door_)--that was hers and her child’s during all her short married life--I often go into it now without remembering that it was theirs. MR. MORLAND. It is strange. It is rather terrible. You are pretty nigh forgotten, Mary Rose. MRS. MORLAND. That isn’t true, dear. Mary Rose belongs to the past, and we have to live in the present, for a very little longer. Just a little longer, and then we shall understand all. Even if we could drag her back to tell us now what these things mean I think it would be a shame. MR. MORLAND. Yes, I suppose so. Do you think Simon is a philosopher about it also? MRS. MORLAND. Don’t be bitter, James, to your old wife. Simon was very fond of her. He was a true lover. MR. MORLAND. Was, was! Is it all ‘was’ about Mary Rose? MRS. MORLAND. It just has to be. He had all the clever ones of the day advising, suggesting, probing. He went back to the island every year for a long time. MR. MORLAND. Yes, and then he missed a year, and that somehow ended it. MRS. MORLAND. He never married again. Most men would. MR. MORLAND. His work took her place. What a jolly, hearty fellow he is. MRS. MORLAND. If you mean he isn’t heart-broken, he isn’t. Mercifully the wound has healed. MR. MORLAND. I am not criticising, Fanny. I suppose any one who came back after twenty-five years--however much they had been loved--it might--we--should we know what to say to them, Fanny? MRS. MORLAND. Don’t, James. (_She rises._) Simon is late, isn’t he?