If | Page 5

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 catching that train. I've got the crystal,
and I'll catch it yet!
MARY
O, John, that's what you said you wouldn't do.
JOHN
No. I said I'd do nothing to alter the past. And I won't. I'm too content,
Mary. But this can't alter it. This is nothing.
MARY
What were you going to catch the train for, John?
JOHN
For London. I wasn't at the office then. It was a business appointment.
There was a man who had promised to get me a job, and I was going up
to . . .
MARY
John, it may alter your whole life!
JOHN
Now do listen, Mary, do listen. He never turned up. I got a letter from
him apologising to me before I posted mine to him. It turned out he
never meant to help me, mere meaningless affabilities. He never came
to London that day at all. I should have taken the next train back. That
can't affect the future.
MARY
N-no, John. Still, I don't like it.
JOHN
What difference could it make?
MARY N-n-no. JOHN
Think how we met. We met at ARCHIE's wedding. I take it one has to
go to one's brother's wedding. It would take a pretty big change to alter
that. And. you were her bridesmaid. We were bound to meet. And
having once met, well, there you are. If we'd met by chance, in a train,
or anything like that, well, then I admit some little change might alter it.
But when we met at ARCHIE's wedding and you were her bridesmaid,
why, Mary, it's a cert. Besides, I believe in predestination. It was our
fate; we couldn't have missed it.
MARY

No, I suppose not; still . .
JOHN