ANNE. --away from me! Yes! Say it! SHAKESPEARE [_under his breath_]. Patience! Patience! ANNE. Come back! Come back! I’m sorry. Oh, come back! I talk too much. I crossed you. You must eat. Oh! Oh! I meant no harm--I meant no harm I-- You know? SHAKESPEARE. I know. ANNE. Why then, come back and eat, And talk to me. Aren’t you a boy to lose All day in the woods? SHAKESPEARE. The town! ANNE. Ah! In the town? Ah then, you’ve talked and eaten. Yes, you can talk In the town! _He goes back to his desk._ More writing? What’s the dream to-day? _He winces._ Oh, tell me, tell me! SHAKESPEARE. No! ANNE. I want your dreams. SHAKESPEARE. A dream’s a bubble, Anne, and yet a world, Unsailed, uncharted, mine. But stretch your hand To touch it--gone! And you have wet your fingers, Whilst I, like Alexander, want my world-- And so I scold my wife. ANNE. Oh, let me sail Your world with you. SHAKESPEARE. One day, when all is mapped On paper-- ANNE. Now! SHAKESPEARE. Not yet. ANNE. Now, now! SHAKESPEARE. I cannot! ANNE. Because you will not. Ever you shut me out. SHAKESPEARE. How many are there in the listening room? ANNE. We two. SHAKESPEARE. We three. ANNE. Will! SHAKESPEARE. Are there not three? Yet swift, Because it is too soon, you shrink from me, Guarding your mystery still; so must I guard My dreams from any touch till they are born. ANNE. What! Do you make our bond our barrier now? SHAKESPEARE. See, you’re a child that clamours--“Let me taste!” But laugh and let it sip your wine, it cries-- “I like it not. It is not sweet!”--and blames you. See! even when I give you cannot take. ANNE. Try me! SHAKESPEARE. Too late. ANNE. I will not think I know What cruelty you mean. What is’t you mean? What is’t? SHAKESPEARE. How long since we two married? ANNE. Why, Four months. SHAKESPEARE. And are you happy? ANNE. Will, aren’t you? SHAKESPEARE. I asked my wife. ANNE. I am! I am! I am! Oh, how can I be happy when I read Your eyes, and read--what is it that I read? SHAKESPEARE. God knows! ANNE. Yes, God He knows, but He’s so far away-- Tell Anne!