How do you feel now? WILLIAM (_after looking thoughtfully at Robert, in a weak voice_). Robert? Eh? ROBERT. Yes, it’s I, Robert. How do you feel? WILLIAM. Well, (_clears his throat_) quite well, now. [_He laughs constrainedly, makes a faint attempt to get up, but fails._ ROBERT. Oh, that’s a little bit too soon, eh? [_William nods, sighs and shuts his eyes again as if exhausted. Pause. William re-opens his eyes fully and speaks low but clearly._ WILLIAM. What has been going on here? ROBERT. I think, Willy, it will be best if we let that be for the present. I’ll assure you of _one thing_, it’s something that I, for one, would never have believed possible. WILLIAM (_with emotion_). Nor I. ROBERT. How on earth should a fellow—ah, rubbish! It was absolutely impossible to foresee it. All the same it happened. WILLIAM. It comes back to me now, little by little; it was pleasant. [_His eyes fill with tears._ ROBERT (_with a slight quiver in his voice_). Sentimental! Just like a woman! There’s one thing certain, our judgment was pretty wide of the mark; we haven’t known the old man really; it’s no use thinking we have. WILLIAM. Father? No, we were all so blind! so blind! ROBERT. Yes, God knows, we were. WILLIAM. How strange it seems. The old fellow really cares for us; he’s a real good sort. ROBERT. He can be, and till now I never knew it. WILLIAM. A good deal is beginning to dawn on me. ROBERT. With my brain and so on, you know, I have grasped it long enough. Everything that happened had to be; I never held father responsible—at least, I haven’t for years. Certainly not for me—not for any of us. But to-day I have really _felt_ it; and that, you know, is quite another thing—Frankly, it’s taken me right off my balance. When I saw him so—so anxious over you, it was like a blow to me; and now I shall always be thinking:—That was there, living, in us.—Why on earth didn’t it show itself before? In father—in you—and, by God! in me too. It was there in us! And there he has been stifling it in himself—father, I mean—yes, and we too, for years and years— WILLIAM. I see one thing: we not only show a different self to every one of our fellow-creatures, but we _are_ fundamentally different to each. ROBERT. But why must it be so with us? Why must we for ever keep each other at such a distance? WILLIAM. I’ll tell you why; because we have no natural goodness of heart. Take Ida for instance: what you have got at by hard thinking is natural to her. She never sits in judgment, she treats everything so gently, with such sympathy, and that spares people so much—you understand—and I believe it is that— ROBERT (_abruptly, rises_). How do you feel now? WILLIAM. I feel relieved—free. ROBERT. Ah! what’s the use of all that—H’m! what was I going to say—Perhaps it will turn out all right for you. WILLIAM. What do you mean? ROBERT. What should I mean? For you and—for Ida, of course. WILLIAM.