You don’t answer. Of course, I’d forgotten. You’re engaged. O girl, why did you do that by me? And yet, have I any right to complain? She is all that’s dear and good. All that’s dear and good should have reminded me of her. And yet for years she was as good as dead to me. In return she has----If only it were a _man_ whom one could honour and respect! But this Leonard---- CLARA (_suddenly hearing the name_). I must go to him. That’s it! I’m no longer the sister of a thief! O God, what do I want? He will, he must! Unless he’s a very devil, all will be as it was. (_In horror._) As it was. (_To_ SECRETARY.) Don’t be offended, Frederick.--What makes my legs so heavy all at once? SEC. Are you going? CLARA. To see Leonard, where else? I’ve only this one path to go in all the world. SEC. You love him then? CLARA (_excitedly_). Love him? It is him or death. Are you surprised that I choose him? I wouldn’t do it if I were thinking of myself alone. SEC. Him or death? Why, girl, this sounds like despair. CLARA. Don’t drive me mad. Don’t speak to me! You! I love you! There! There! I’ll shout it at you, as if I were already wandering beyond the grave, where no one blushes, where they all slink past one another, cold and naked, because that terrible, holy nearness of God has laid bare the thoughts of each one down to the roots. SEC. Me? You still love me? Clara, I suspected it when I saw you outside in the garden. CLARA. Did you? He did, too. (_Dully, as if alone._) He stood before me. He or I? Oh, my heart, my cursed heart! To prove to him and to myself that it wasn’t so, or to crush it if it were so, I did what I now----(_bursting into tears_). O God in Heaven, I would have pity if I were thou and thou wert I! SEC. Clara, be my wife! I came to you to look you in the eyes in the old way. If you had not understood my look, I would have gone away and said nothing. Now I offer you all that I am and all that I have. It’s little, but it can grow. I’d have been here long ago, only your mother was ill--and then she died. (CLARA _laughs madly_.) Have courage, girl! You gave him your word. Is that on your mind? And I must say it’s a devil of a nuisance. How could you----? CLARA. Oh! Go on asking me how things combine to drive a poor girl mad! Sneers and mockery on all sides when you had gone to college and never wrote. “She’s thinking about him.” “She thinks his fun was meant seriously.” “Does she get letters from him?” And then mother: “Stick to your equals.” “Pride goes before a fall.” “Leonard’s a fine young man; everybody is surprised that you turn your back on him.” And then my own heart: “If he’s forgotten you, show him that you too----” O God! SEC.