[_Holding his hand out._ LADY WARGRAVE [_taking it_]. And for going? [_Exit with COLONEL, L._ MRS. SYLVESTER. What does she mean? GERALD. Thank her for going? MRS. SYLVESTER. And the end of it? GERALD. Aunt always talks in riddles! MRS. SYLVESTER. Is it a riddle? GERALD [_avoids her eyes_]. Come, let us get to work. I've done hardly anything today. It's first one interruption, then another. [_Sits._ MRS. SYLVESTER. We should be quieter at our house. GERALD. There's your husband! MRS. SYLVESTER. Always a husband! GERALD. Or a wife. Ah, me! [_Sits with his head between his hands, staring at vacancy; MRS. SYLVESTER watching him sympathetically._ MRS. SYLVESTER [_comes and kneels by him_]. Gerald! [_He starts slightly._] You are not happy. You have realized the truth. GERALD. What truth? MRS. SYLVESTER. Your marriage was a mistake from the beginning. GERALD. Not from the beginning. It started right enough, but somehow it has taken the wrong turn. MRS. SYLVESTER. It was wrong from the first. Mine was the true ideal. The thing that you thought love was a mere passion--an intoxication. Now you have come back to your better self you feel the need of sympathy. GERALD. No, no; my love was real enough, and I love Margery still; but love doesn't seem to bear the wear and tear of marriage--the hourly friction--the continual jar. MRS. SYLVESTER. There is no friction in true marriage, Gerald. You say you love your wife, and it is good and loyal of you to deceive yourself; but you can't deceive me. Haven't I made the same mistake myself? I was a thoughtless, inexperienced girl, Jack was a handsome, easy-going man. We married, and for a year or two we jogged along. But I grew up--the girl became a woman. I read, I thought, I felt; my life enlarged. Jack never reads, never thinks--he is just the same. [_Rising._] I am not unhappy, but my soul is starved--[_goes to mantelpiece and stands looking at him_]--as yours is! [_Pause. MARGERY'S face appears between the curtains at the back, wearing a broad smile. She grimaces at them, unobserved, and remains there; then looks at GERALD with a long face of mock sympathy._ GERALD. Well, we must make the best of it! MRS. SYLVESTER. Yes, but what _is_ the best? [_MARGERY grimaces at her._] Is our mistake so hopeless, irremediable? After all, is not true loyalty loyalty to oneself? GERALD [_looks at her_]. You think so? MRS. SYLVESTER. Or what becomes of our philosophy? GERALD. Yes, what becomes of it? [_Another pause. MARGERY laughs almost audibly. During the next passage the laugh subsides into an expression of perplexity._ MRS. SYLVESTER. What is a promise when the heart's gone out of it? GERALD. Surely it is a promise. MRS. SYLVESTER.