CAMELE. So you have often said, but I thought that he was different. MAUD. Brutes, beasts. CAMELE. But we were so happy at first--the first months-- MAUD. Really happy? CAMELE. Yes, I was happy. I painted and Jack was with me between times--yes, I was happy and calm. MAUD. You only thought so; I knew that it couldn't last. I know you too well. CAMELE. Yes, you were right, I suppose. MAUD. And what now? CAMELE. I don't know--I broke with the family when I married him, as you know--now, I don't know. GEORGE (from the tea table, to Alice and Yvonne). I'll go for some lemons. (He goes out.) MAUD. What a mistake to have married, Camele! CAMELE. No, it was not a mistake. I'm not sorry even now. (Sits up.) MAUD. Camele, Camele! CAMELE. Well, it's the truth, I'm not. MAUD. But what will you do--where will you live? CAMELE. I don't know yet. MAUD (after a pause, in a pleading voice). Come with us for a while. CAMELE. Maud, all right--to-night--just to-night until I have time to think. MAUD. As long as you like--Alice is used to me protecting widows and children. (She puts her arm around Camele.) CAMELE. Just for a day or two; I'll hunt for a position to-morrow. MAUD. You had much better write to your family. They'll forgive you when they know that you have left the brute. To think of him striking you! Where did he strike you? CAMELE. Strike me? What do you mean--where did he strike me? MAUD. Why, you said when you came in that Jack had struck you last night. CAMELE. How common of you, Maud--I thought that you would understand. I didn't know that any of you took things literally--you didn't used to, when I knew you before my marriage, and I knew you all very well. MAUD. Very well, indeed--so he didn't strike you? CAMELE. Yes, he did. MAUD. Eh? CAMELE. Yes and no. You see, Jack had been away for a week. I had been painting rather hard and was very interested in an arrangement of blacks I was trying to get. Subtle--blacks against blacks. It was coming along well; I liked it in parts very much. It was finished almost, yesterday, before he came home. Then, last night, he returned. I was tired, but decided to show him the canvas, as he asked what I had been doing. We went up to the studio. "Stand there," I said, and turned the canvas toward the light. It really looked good: the tone was the best that I had ever had in any of my canvases. He looked at it, and I at him. He seemed to understand, at last, my work, I thought. He had never done so before, which I realized only after we were married, and which came to worry me more and more. "You do like it?" I asked. "Yes," he said--"it looks like a Sargent!" GEORGE (returns). Here are the lemons. MAUD. You did right--come with us! To live with him now would be impossible. Strike you--he did more--he tried to kill you--your soul. He wanted you to go--he knew what he was saying and how it would affect you. How you must have suffered before the final crash of last night came!