TIM: What nonsense you talk. Everyone becomes good when they are with you. ANN: Some day you may find out terrible things about me—and then what shall I do? TIM: What you did wouldn’t matter, anyway. ANN (_looking at him intensely_): Wouldn’t it? Are you sure? TIM: Quite sure. It’s what you are. The warm glowing light you give. It doesn’t matter into what dark corners it goes, does it? ANN (_in a whisper_): I wonder. TIM: The places it lights and warms aren’t part of the sun, are they? ANN: But people don’t work in that magnificent way. They select their just and their unjust. What human being is impartial? TIM: You are, very nearly. You make everyone happy. ANN: I don’t! My God—I don’t. TIM: How I used to curse your marriage to Ninian. I do still in a way—and yet I am glad—selfishly glad, perhaps, that you have never been in love, that no hellish divine unrest has wrought havoc in your heart—that you are always there, serene and luminous and tender and whole. ANN (_wonderingly_): Do you really think I am like that? TIM: Yes. Not a searchlight, or a lamp, but sunshine out of doors. ANN: My dear, I am a nervous, impatient, hungry, selfish creature. TIM: You are a wicked woman, to fish after all the divine things I have been saying to you. ANN: Tim, you spoil me. TIM (_seizing her shoulders_): I’d love to spoil you, all day, every day, all of the time. I’m sorry, Ann. I’m being rough and uncontrolled, and worrying you. Forgive me. ANN: Forgive you? Tim dear, you are an angel, and I am a very ordinary woman, and so tired. TIM: Bless you. [_TIM tiptoes out of the room._ [_There is a pause. Then JORDAN enters quietly, shutting the door behind him._ ANN: Philip! [_JORDAN walks to the window._ ANN: Darling, you haven’t kissed me. PHILIP: Oh, I am thinking of something else, and kisses have nothing to do with it. ANN: I don’t understand. PHILIP: Women never do. ANN: For God’s sake, don’t generalize—it sounds so cheap. PHILIP: It’s my platform training. ANN: You’re so strange to-day—is anything the matter? PHILIP: Nothing and everything. ANN: Are you angry with me? PHILIP: No. ANN: I am sorry if I was snappy. [_There is a pause._ ANN: In twenty minutes Ninian will be back from the station, the dressing-gong will ring, and I shall have to leave you. Oh, I wish there weren’t a clock in my heart telling me that time is running away. PHILIP: It is half-past seven now. ANN: All those lovely precious moments when I have you to myself ... don’t let them be empty moments, Philip. Think of all the agonizing happiness that we can fill them with. PHILIP: Why do you always want things at fever pitch? ANN: I don’t, but each time I am with you my love is like a child being born. It tears me to bits. And then there comes a moment of pure ecstasy and forgetfulness, and my life ceases to exist, and there is no time, and everything is simple. PHILIP: My dear child, your nerves are out of order.