_Miss Mahr._ It is a great age that we live in. That which has so weighed upon people's minds and darkened their lives seems to me to be gradually disappearing. Do you not think so, Dr. Vockerat? _John._ How do you mean? _Miss Mahr._ On the one hand we were oppressed by a sense of uncertainty, of apprehension, on the other by gloomy fanaticism. This exaggerated tension is calming down, is yielding to the influence of something like a current of fresh air, that is blowing in upon us from--let us say from the twentieth century. _John._ But I don't find it possible to arrive at any real joy in life yet. I don't know.... _Miss Mahr._ It has no connection with our individual fates--our little fates, Dr. Vockerat!... I have something to say to you--but you are not to get angry; you are to be quite quiet and good.... Dr. Vockerat! we also are falling into the error of weak natures. We must look at things more impersonally. We must learn to take ourselves less seriously. _John._ But we'll not talk about that at present.... And is one really to sacrifice everything that one has gained to this cursed conventionality? Are people incapable of understanding that there can be no crime in a situation which only tends to make both parties better and nobler? Do parents lose by their son becoming a better, wiser man? Does a wife lose by the spiritual growth of her husband? _Miss Mahr._ You are both right and wrong.... Your parents have a different standard from you. Kitty's again, differs from theirs. It seems to me that in this we cannot judge for them. _John._ Yes, but you have always said yourself that one should not allow one's self to be ruled by the opinion of others--that one ought to be independent? _Miss Mahr._ You have often said to me that you foresee a new, a nobler state of fellowship between man and woman. _John._ Yes, I feel that it will come some time--a relationship in which the human will preponderate over the animal tie. Animal will no longer be united to animal, but one human being to another. Friendship is the foundation on which this love will rise, beautiful, unchangeable, a miraculous structure. And I foresee more than this--something nobler, richer, freer still. _Miss Mahr._ But will you get anyone, except me, to believe this? Will this prevent Kitty's grieving herself to death?... Don't let us speak of ourselves at all. Let us suppose, quite generally, the feeling of a new, more perfect relationship between two people to exist, as it were prophetically. It is only a feeling, a young and all too tender plant which must be carefully watched and guarded. Don't you think so, Dr. Vockerat? That this plant should come to perfection during our lifetime is not to be expected. We shall not see or taste its fruits. But we may help to propagate it for future generations. I could imagine a person accepting this as a life-task.