(_Changing his tone._) Look here, Madge, I am a fool. Let us talk sensibly, you and Knox and I. Knox, you want my wife. You can have her--on one consideration. Madge, you want Knox. You can have him on one consideration, the same consideration. Give up the letters and we'll forget everything. {Margaret} Everything? {Chalmers} Everything. Forgive and forget You know. {Margaret} You will forgive my--I--this--this adultery? {Chalmers} (_Doggedly._) I'll forgive anything for the letters. I've played fast and loose with you, Madge, and I fancy your playing fast and loose only evens things up. Return the letters and you can go with Knox quietly. I'll see to that. There won't be a breath of scandal. I'll give you a divorce. Or you can stay on with me if you want to. I don't care. What I want is the letters. Is it agreed? (_Margaret seems to hesitate._) {Knox} (_Pleadingly._) Margaret. {Margaret} {Chalmers} (_Testily._) Am I not giving you each other? What more do you want? Tommy stays with me. If you want Tommy, then stay with me, but you must give up the letters. {Margaret} I shall not go with Mr. Knox. I shall not give up the letters. I shall remain with Tommy. {Chalmers} So far as I am concerned, Knox doesn't count in this. I want the letters and I want Tommy. If you don't give them up, I'll divorce you on statutory grounds, and no woman, so divorced, can keep her child. In any event, I shall keep Tommy. {Margaret} (_Speaking steadily and positively._) Listen, Tom; and you, too, Howard. I have never for a moment entertained the thought of giving up the letters. I may have led you to think so, but I wanted to see just how low, you, Tom, could sink. I saw how low you--all of you--this morning sank. I have learned--much. Where is this fine honor, Tom, which put you on a man-killing rage a moment ago? You'll barter it all for a few scraps of paper, and forgive and forget adultery which does not exist-- (_Chalmers laughs skeptically._)--though I know when I say it you will not believe me. At any rate, I shall not give up the letters. Not if you do take Tommy away from me. Not even for Tommy will I sacrifice all the people. As I told you this morning, there are two million Tommys, child-laborers all, who cannot be sacrificed for Tommy's sake or anybody's sake. (_Chalmers shrugs his shoulders and smiles in ridicule._) {Knox} Surely, Margaret, there is a way out for us. Give up the letters. What are they?--only scraps of paper. Why match them against happiness--our happiness? {Margaret} But as you told me yourself, those scraps of paper represent the happiness of millions of lives. It is not our happiness that is matched against some scraps of paper. It is our happiness against millions of lives--like ours. All these millions have hearts, and loves, and desires, just like ours. {Knox}