Oh, you feel as free of me as that, do you? It suits me all right. So (_meaningly_) that toothache of yours the other day was a false alarm? CLARA. Oh, Leonard, you’d no right to do it! LEONARD. No right to bind what is dearest to me--yourself--by the last bond of all? And just when I stood in danger of losing it! Do you think I didn’t see you exchanging quiet glances with the secretary? That was a nice holiday for me! I take you to a dance and---- CLARA. You never stop worrying me. I looked at him, of course. Why should I deny it? but only because of the moustache he’s grown at college. It----(_she breaks off_). LEONARD. Suits him so well, eh? That’s what you mean. Oh, you women! You like the mark of the soldier even in the silliest caricature. The little round-faced fop--I hate him! I don’t conceal it; he’s stood in my way with you long enough;--with that forest of hair in the middle of his face, he looks like a white rabbit trying to hide in a thicket. CLARA. I haven’t praised him yet. You don’t need to start running him down. LEONARD. You still seem to take a warm interest in him. CLARA. We played together as children, and after that--you know all about it. LEONARD. Oh yes, I know. That’s just the trouble. CLARA. Well, surely it was natural for me, seeing him again for the first time after so long, to look at him and wonder at---- LEONARD. Why did you blush then, when he looked at you? CLARA. I thought he was looking to see if the wart on my left cheek had got any bigger. You know I always think that when anybody stares at me, and it makes me blush. The wart seems to grow, whenever it’s looked at! LEONARD. That may be. But it troubled me, and I said to myself: “I’ll test her this very night. If she really wants to be my wife, she knows that she’s running no risks. If she says No----” CLARA. Oh, you spoke a wicked, wicked word, when I pushed you away, and jumped up from the seat. The moon that had shone, for my help, right into the arbour, wrapped herself cunningly in the wet clouds. I tried to hurry away, but something held me back. At first I thought it was you, but it was the rose-tree, whose thorns had caught my dress like teeth. You reviled me, until I could no longer trust my own heart. You stood before me, like one demanding a debt. And I----O God! LEONARD. I can’t regret it. I know that it was the only way of keeping you. Your old love had opened its eyes and I could not close them fast enough. CLARA.