ROYCE. Hasn’t he got it? There are his works. Didn’t he have the wonderful happiness and pain of writing them? How can you do anything for him now? It’s just pure sentiment, isn’t it? ISOBEL (_meekly_). If you say so, sir. ROYCE (_laughing_). Am I lecturing? I’m sorry. ISOBEL. No, I don’t mind. And I expect you’re right. I can’t do anything. (_After a pause_) Are one’s motives ever pure? ROYCE. One hopes so. One never knows. ISOBEL. I keep telling myself that I want the truth to prevail—but is it only that? Or is it that I want to punish him?... He hurt me so. All those years he was pretending that I helped him. And all the time it was just a game to him. A game—and he was laughing. Do you wonder that I was bitter? It was just a game to him. ROYCE. As he said, he carried it off. ISOBEL. Yes, he carried it off.... Even in those last moments he was carrying it off. Just that. He was frightened at first—he was dying; it was so lonely in the grave; there was no audience there; no one to listen, to admire. Only God. Ah, but when he had begun his story, how quickly he was the artist again! No fear now, no remorse. Just the artist glorying in his story; putting all he knew into the telling of it, making me see that dead boy whom he had betrayed so vividly that I could have stretched out my hand to him and said, “Oh, my dear, I’m sorry—I will make it all right for you.” Oh, he had his qualities, Oliver Blayds. My father, yes; but somehow he never seemed that. A great man; a little man; but never quite my father. ROYCE. A great man, I think. ISOBEL. Yes, he was a great man, and he did less hurt to the world than most great men do. ROYCE (_picking up his statement_). Then I can tear up this? ISOBEL (_after a little struggle with herself_). Yes! Let us bury the dead, and forget about them. (_He tears it up. She gives a sigh of relief_) There! ROYCE (_coming to her_). Isobel! ISOBEL. Ah—but she’s dead too. Let’s forget about her. ROYCE. She is not dead. I have seen her. ISOBEL. When did you see her? ROYCE. To-day I have seen her. She peeped out for a moment, and was gone. ISOBEL. She just peeped out to say good-bye to you. ROYCE (_shaking his head_). No. To say “How do you do” to me. ISOBEL. My dear, she died eighteen years ago, that child. ROYCE (_smiling_). Then introduce me to her mother. ISOBEL (_gravely, with a smile behind it_). Mr. Royce, let me introduce you to my mother—thirty-eight, poor dear. (_Bowing_) How do you do, Mr. Royce? I have heard my daughter speak of you. ROYCE. How do you do, Mrs. Blayds? I’m glad to meet you, because I once asked your daughter to marry me. ISOBEL. Ah, don’t, don’t! ROYCE (_cheerfully_). Do you know what she said? She said, like all properly brought up girls, “You must ask my mother.” So now I ask her—“Isobel’s mother, will _you_ marry me?” ISOBEL. Oh!