CRICHTON. That must be it. (He rises.) Polly! (She looks up expectantly, but he only sighs and turns away.) LADY MARY (gently). You sighed, Gov. CRICHTON. Did I? I was thinking. (He paces the room and then turns to her agitatedly, yet with control over his agitation. There is some mournfulness in his voice.) I have always tried to do the right thing on this island. Above all, Polly, I want to do the right thing by you. LADY MARY (with shining eyes). How we all trust you. That is your reward, Gov. CRICHTON (who is having a fight with himself). And now I want a greater reward. Is it fair to you? Am I playing the game? Bill Crichton would like always to play the game. If we were in England--(He pauses so long that she breaks in softly.) LADY MARY. We know now that we shall never see England again. CRICHTON. I am thinking of two people whom neither of us has seen for a long time--Lady Mary Lasenby, and one Crichton, a butler. (He says the last word bravely, a word he once loved, though it is the most horrible of all words to him now.) LADY MARY. That cold, haughty, insolent girl. Gov., look around you and forget them both. CRICHTON. I had nigh forgotten them. He has had a chance, Polly--that butler--in these two years of becoming a man, and he has tried to take it. There have been many failures, but there has been some success, and with it I have let the past drop off me, and turned my back on it. That butler seems a far-away figure to me now, and not myself. I hail him, but we scarce know each other. If I am to bring him back it can only be done by force, for in my soul he is now abhorrent to me. But if I thought it best for you I’d haul him back; I swear as an honest man, I would bring him back with all his obsequious ways and deferential airs, and let you see the man you call your Gov. melt for ever into him who was your servant. LADY MARY (shivering). You hurt me. You say these things, but you say them like a king. To me it is the past that was not real. CRICHTON (too grandly). A king! I sometimes feel--(For a moment the yellow light gleams in his green eyes. We remember suddenly what TREHERNE and ERNEST said about his regal look. He checks himself.) I say it harshly, it is so hard to say, and all the time there is another voice within me crying--(He stops.) LADY MARY (trembling but not afraid). If it is the voice of nature-- CRICHTON (strongly). I know it to be the voice of nature. LADY MARY (in a whisper). Then, if you want to say it very much, Gov., please say it to Polly Lasenby.