Beata--no one knows as you do how I have blundered and struggled. What are you trying to do? Do you want to give me more faith in myself, or do you really think I've done all that for you? Beata. I know every line in your forehead, I watch every look in your eye, I read every thought in your soul--there are some I could wish away, for they only make you miserable--but no one knows as I do what you are, and what you have been to me! Richard. When will Michael be here? Beata. How suddenly you ask that! You are tormenting yourself again. Dear--dearest--don't look like that! Why, it never really happened--it's been dead and buried for years--dead and buried, every trace of it. No one knows what we were to each other, no one even dreams it. And we're old people now--you and I. Only think, I shall soon be forty! Who is going to ask two old mummies what follies they committed in the year one? Richard. You are pretending not to care, Beata. Don't do that! Beata. Don't weigh every word I say--just look into my wicked heart. Your conscience has nothing to do with that! And if you're fond of Michael--if we're both fond of him--and why shouldn't we both be fond of him--that dear, good, cheery Michael of ours?--why, that needn't make you probe the depths of your soul for fresh wickedness. I tell you we've paid for everything, even to the uttermost farthing! Richard. Do you think so? It seems to me that when a man and a woman have found everything in each other, as we have, when they have been to each other the strength and the meaning and the object of life--when they've resolved to die fighting back to back, together to the last, as you used to say it seems to me that in such a case there isn't much room for expiation. If Purgatory is like that it must be fairly habitable. (Beata _laughs_.) Ah, now you are flippant. Beata. Be thankful that one of us is, dear! Richard. I remember when I lost my seat, six years ago--it was a hard knock, I can tell you--everything went under at once--well, I said to myself: This is my punishment. And the idea never left me. While I was wandering about the world, or vegetating down in the country, I actually used to get a kind of comfort out of it. And now? Do you know, I sometimes fancy you wouldn't be altogether sorry if I lost my election again. Beata (_laughingly_). Really? Do you think that? Richard. In fact I'm not at all sure you hold with the party any longer. Beata. What--I, its Egeria? An elderly party-nymph gone wrong? What a shocking idea! Richard. I'm sure of one thing you enjoy looking over our heads.