_Lucy._ Yes, very--perhaps I should say I want to see you often. _Harold._ And so do I you, but I can't be in two places at once. This is what I mean when I say you are unreasonable. I must go out. If I am to write, I must study people, character, scenes. I can't do that by stopping at home: I can't do that by coming here; I know you and I know your landlady, and there is nobody else in the house, except the slavey and the cat; and although the slavey may be a very excellent servant and the cat a most original quadruped, still, I don't want to make elaborate studies of animals--either four-legged or two. One would imagine, from the way you talk, that I did nothing except enjoy myself. I only go out in the evenings. _Lucy._ Still you might spare a little time, now and then, to come and see me, if only for half an hour. _Harold._ What am I doing now? I gave up a dinner-party to come here to-night. _Lucy._ Do you know it is exactly a month yesterday since you were here last? _Harold._ I can't be always dangling at your apron-strings. _Lucy._ Harold! _Harold._ If we are going to be married, we---- _Lucy._ If? _Harold._ Well, when, if you like it better; we shall see enough of one another then. I have written to you, it isn't as though I hadn't done that. _Lucy._ But that is not the same thing as seeing you; and your letters, too, have been so scrappy. [Harold _throws himself into the arm-chair_.] They used to be so different before your book came out. _Harold._ I had more time then. _Lucy._ I sometimes wish that it had never been published at all, that you had never written it, or, at all events, that it had never been such a success. _Harold._ That's kind, at all events--deuced kind and considerate! _Lucy._ It seems to have come between us as a barrier. When I think how eagerly we looked forward to its appearance, what castles in the air we built as to how happy we were going to be, and all the things we were going to do, if it were a success, and now to think that---- _Harold._ [_Jumps up._] Look here, Lucy, I'm damned if--I can't stand this much longer! Nag, nag, nag! I can't stand it. I am worked off my head during the day, I am out half the night, and when I come here for a little quiet, a little rest, its--[_Breaks off suddenly_]. _Lucy._ I am so sorry. If I had thought---- _Harold._ Can't you see that you are driving me mad? I have been here half an hour, and the whole of the time it has been nothing but reproaches. _Lucy._ I don't think they would have affected you so much if you hadn't felt that you deserved them! _Harold._ There you go again! I deserve them--[_laughs harshly_]. It is my fault, I suppose, that it is the season; it is my fault that people give dinner-parties and balls; it is my fault, I suppose, that you don't go out as much as I do? _Lucy._ Certainly not; although, as a matter of fact, I haven't been out one single evening for the last three--nearly four--months.