It has been.

SYLVESTER.

It is! I've never understood you; and if there was any good in me, you've never taken the trouble to find it out.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

I can't bear this now.

SYLVESTER.

You must. Don't think I'm going to reproach you. I take all the blame on myself. What if I were to tell you that you've made a convert to your principles where you least expected it?

MRS. SYLVESTER.

What do you mean?

SYLVESTER.

That it's best for us both to put an end to this farce that we're living. I mean, that I love another woman.

MRS. SYLVESTER [_rising_].

You!

SYLVESTER.

Perhaps that seems to you impossible. You thought, perhaps, that I was dull and stupid enough to go on with this empty life of ours to the end. I thought so too, but I was wrong. I love this woman, and I've told her so----

MRS. SYLVESTER [_with jealousy_].

Who is she?

SYLVESTER.

And I would tell her husband to his face

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Then she is married?

SYLVESTER.

As I tell _you._

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Who is she, I say?

SYLVESTER.

Margery.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Margery! Are you all mad, you men? What is it in that woman that enslaves you? What is the charm we others don't possess? Only you men can see it; and you all do! You lose your senses, every one of you!

What is it in her that bewitches you?

SYLVESTER.

What you've crushed out of yourself--your womanhood. What you're ashamed of is a woman's glory. Philosophy is well enough in boots; but in a woman a man wants flesh and blood--frank human nature!

MRS. SYLVESTER [_laughing, hysterically_].

A mere animal!

SYLVESTER.

A woman.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Well, you have found one.

SYLVESTER.

Yes.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Take her, then! go your way!

SYLVESTER.

I will.

[_Exit, C._

MRS. SYLVESTER.

This world was made for such as you and her!

_Re-enter MARGERY, R., cloaked._

We have no place in it--we who love with our brains! we have no chance of happiness!

MARGERY.