I forbid you to speak of your family in that way-of _my_ family! I forbid it! It is an outrage. Your ancestors were honourable men and pure women. They did their duty in the position in which they were born, and handed on their name untarnished to their children. Hitherto our honour has been unsullied. You have sullied it. You have brought shame upon your parents and shame upon your son, and that shame you can never wipe out. If you had in you a spark of human feeling, if you were not worthless and heartless you would blush to look me in the face or your child in the face. But you are utterly hardened. I ought never to have offered to receive you back into this house. I ought never to have consented to see you again. I was wrong. I regret it. You are unfit for the society of decent people. Go back to London. Take up the wretched trade you practise there. It is what you are fit for. JANET That’s exactly what I think, father. As we agree about it why make such a fuss? DE MULLIN _(furious)_ Janet.... HESTER Father, don’t argue with her. It’s no use. _(solemnly)_ Leave her to God. JANET Hester, Hester, don’t deceive yourself. In your heart you envy me my baby, and you know it. HESTER _(indignant)_ I do not. JANET You do. Time is running on with you, my dear. You’re twenty-eight. Just the age that I was when I met my lover. Yes, my lover. In a few years you will be too old for love, too old to have children. So soon it passeth away and we are gone. Your best years are slipping by and you are growing faded and cross and peevish. Already the lines are hardening about your mouth and the hollows coming under your eyes. You will be an old woman before your time unless you marry and have children. And what will you do then? Keep a lap-dog, I suppose, or sit up at night with a sick cockatoo like Miss Deanes. Miss Deanes! Even she has a heart somewhere about her. Do you imagine she wouldn’t rather give it to her babies than snivel over _poultry?_ No, Hester, make good use of your youth, my dear. It won’t last always. And once gone it is gone for ever. _(Hester bursts into tears.)_ There, there, Hester! I’m sorry. I oughtn’t to have spoken like that. It wasn’t kind. Forgive me. _(Hester weep more and more violently.)_ Hester, don’t cry like that. I can’t bear to hear you. I was angry and said more than I should. I didn’t mean to vex you. Come, dear, you mustn’t give way like that or you’ll make yourself ill. Dry your eyes and let me see you smile. _(Caressing her. Hester, who has begun by resisting her feebly, gradually allows herself to be soothed.)_ That’s better! My dear, what a sight you’ve made of yourself! But all women are hideous when they’ve been crying. It makes their noses red and that’s dreadfully unbecoming. _(Hester sobs out a laugh)_. No. You mustn’t begin to cry again or I shall scold you. I shall, really. HESTER _(half laughing, half crying hysterically)_