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show your power unto it. But you will come.
JOHN
And if the house is not mine?
MARY
John! John! Don't.
ALI
Still you will come.
JOHN Shall I remember?
ALI
No.
JOHN
If I want to do anything different to what I did, how shall I remember when I get back there?
MARY
Don't. Don't do anything different, John.
JOHN
All right.
ALI
Choose just before the hour of the step you desire to change. Memory lingers a little at first, and fades away slowly.
JOHN
Five minutes?
ALI
Even ten.
JOHN
Then I can change one thing. After that I forget.
ALI
Even so. One thing. And the rest follows.
JOHN
Well, it's very good of you to make me this nice present, I'm sure.
ALI
Sell it not. Give it, as I gave it, if the heart impels. So shall it come back one day to the hills that are brighter than grass, made richer by the gratitude of many men. And my master shall smile thereat and the vale shall be glad.
JOHN
It's very good of you, I'm sure.
MARY
I don't like it, John. I don't like tampering with what's gone.
ALI
My master's power is in your hands. Farewell.
[Exit.]
JOHN
I say, he's gone.
MARY
O, he's a dreadful man.
JOHN
I never really meant to take it.
MARY
O, John, I wish you hadn't
JOHN
Why? I'm not going to use it.
MARY
Not going to use it, John?
JOHN
No, no. Not if you don't want me to.
MARY
O, I'm so glad.
JOHN
And besides, I don't want things different. I've got fond of this little house. And Briggs is a good old sort, you know. Cater's a bit of an ass, but there's no harm in him. In fact, I'm contented, Mary. I wouldn't even change Aunt Martha now.
[Points at frowning framed photograph centrally hung.]
You remember when she first came and you said "Where shall we hang her?" I said the cellar. You said we couldn't. So she had to go there. But I wouldn't change her now. I suppose there are old watch-dogs like her in every family. I wouldn't change anything.
MARY
O, John, wouldn't you really?
JOHN
No, I'm contented. Grim old soul, I wouldn't even change Aunt Martha.
MARY
I'm glad of that, John. I was frightened. I couldn't bear to tamper with the past. You don't know what it is, it's what's gone. But if it really isn't gone at all, if it can be dug up like that, why you don't know what mightn't happen! I don't mind the future, but if the past can come back like that.... O, don't, don't, John. Don't think of it. It isn't canny. There's the children, John.
JOHN
Yes, yes, that's all right. It's only a little ornament. I won't use it. And I tell you I'm content. [Happily] It's no use to me.
MARY
I'm so glad you're content, John. Are you really? Is there nothing that you'd have had different? I sometimes thought you'd rather that Jane had been a boy.
JOHN
Not a bit of it. Well, I may have at the time, but Arthur's good enough for me.
MARY
I'm so glad. And there's nothing you ever regret at all?
JOHN
Nothing. And you? Is there nothing you regret, Mary?
MARY
Me? Oh, no. I still think that sofa would have been better green, but you would have it red.
JOHN
Yes, so I would. No, there's nothing I regret.
MARY
I don't suppose there's many men can say that.
JOHN
No, I don't suppose they can. They're not all married to you. I don't suppose many of them can.
[MARY smiles.]
MARY
I should think that very few could say that they regretted nothing . . . very few in the whole world.
JOHN
Well, I won't say nothing.
MARY
What is it you regret, John?
JOHN
Well, there is one thing.
MARY
And what is that?
JOHN
One thing has rankled a bit.
MARY
Yes, John?
JOHN
O, it's nothing, it's nothing worth mentioning. But it rankled for years.
MARY
What was it, John?
JOHN
O, it seems silly to mention it. It was nothing.
MARY But what?
JOHN
O, well, if you want to know, it was once when I missed a train. I don't mind missing a train, but it was the way the porter pushed me out of the way. He pushed me by the face. I couldn't hit back, because, well, you know what lawyers make of it; I might have been ruined. So it just rankled. It was years ago before we married.
MARY
Pushed you by the face. Good gracious!
JOHN
Yes, I'd like to have caught that train in spite of him. I sometimes think of it still. Silly of me, isn't it?
MARY
What a brute of a man.
JOHN
O, I suppose he was doing his silly duty. But it rankled.
MARY
He'd no right to do any such thing! He'd no right to touch you!
JOHN
O, well, never mind.
MARY
I should like to have been there. . . I'd have . . .
JOHN
O, well, it can't be helped now; but I'd like to have caught it in sp . . . [An idea seizes him.]
MARY
What is it?
JOHN
Can't be helped, I said. It's the very thing that can be helped.
MARY
Can be helped, John? Whatever do you mean?
JOHN
I mean he'd no right to stop me