VALENTINE (dubiously). Hm! There are a good many people here-- nearly forty millions. They're not all consumptive members of the highly educated classes like the people in Madeira. GLORIA (now full of her subject). Oh, everybody is stupid and prejudiced in Madeira--weak, sentimental creatures! I hate weakness; and I hate sentiment. VALENTINE. That's what makes you so inspiring. GLORIA (with a slight laugh). Am I inspiring? VALENTINE Yes. Strength's infectious. GLORIA. Weakness is, I know. VALENTINE (with conviction). Y o u're strong. Do you know that you changed the world for me this morning? I was in the dumps, thinking of my unpaid rent, frightened about the future. When you came in, I was dazzled. (Her brow clouds a little. He goes on quickly.) That was silly, of course; but really and truly something happened to me. Explain it how you will, my blood got-- (he hesitates, trying to think of a sufficiently unimpassioned word) --oxygenated: my muscles braced; my mind cleared; my courage rose. That's odd, isn't it? considering that I am not at all a sentimental man. GLORIA (uneasily, rising). Let us go back to the beach. VALENTINE (darkly--looking up at her). What! you feel it, too? GLORIA. Feel what? VALENTINE. Dread. GLORIA. Dread! VALENTINE. As if something were going to happen. It came over me suddenly just before you proposed that we should run away to the others. GLORIA (amazed). That's strange--very strange! I had the same presentiment. VALENTINE. How extraordinary! (Rising.) Well: shall we run away? GLORIA. Run away! Oh, no: that would be childish. (She sits down again. He resumes his seat beside her, and watches her with a gravely sympathetic air. She is thoughtful and a little troubled as she adds) I wonder what is the scientific explanation of those fancies that cross us occasionally! VALENTINE. Ah, I wonder! It's a curiously helpless sensation: isn't it? GLORIA (rebelling against the word). Helpless? VALENTINE. Yes. As if Nature, after allowing us to belong to ourselves and do what we judged right and reasonable for all these years, were suddenly lifting her great hand to take us--her two little children--by the scruff's of our little necks, and use us, in spite of ourselves, for her own purposes, in her own way. GLORIA. Isn't that rather fanciful? VALENTINE (with a new and startling transition to a tone of utter recklessness). I don't know. I don't care. (Bursting out reproachfully.) Oh, Miss Clandon, Miss Clandon: how could you? GLORIA. What have I done? VALENTINE. Thrown this enchantment on me. I'm honestly trying to be sensible--scientific--everything that you wish me to be. But--but-- oh, don't you see what you have set to work in my imagination? GLORIA (with indignant, scornful sternness). I hope you are not going to be so foolish--so vulgar--as to say love.