The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith | Page 8

him.]
AGNES. Your career? [Pointing to the destroyed letters.] True that one
is over. But there's the other, you know--ours.
LUCAS. [Touching her hand.] Yes, yes, Still, it's just a little saddening,
the saying good-bye--[disturbing the scraps of paper]--to all this.
AGNES. Saddening, dear? Why, this political career of yours--think
what it would have been at best? Accident of birth sent you to the
wrong side of the House; influence of family would always have kept
you there.
LUCAS. [Partly to himself.] But I made my mark. I did make my mark.
AGNES. Supporting the Party that retards; the Party that preserves for
the rich, palters with the poor. [Pointing to the letters again.] Oh, there's
not much to mourn for there!
LUCAS. Still, it was--success.
AGNES. Success!
LUCAS. I was talked about, written about, as a Coming Man--the
Coming Man!

AGNES. How many "coming men" has one known? Where on earth do
they all go to?
LUCAS. Ah, yes, but I allowed for the failure, and carefully set myself
to discover the causes of them. And, as I put my fingers upon the
causes and examined them, I congratulated myself and said "Well, I
haven't that weak point in my armour, or that;" and Agnes, at last I was
fool enough to imagine I had no weak point, none whatever.
AGNES. It was weak enough to believe that.
LUCAS. I couldn't foresee that I was doomed to pay the price all
nervous men pay for success; that the greater my success became, the
more cancer-like grew the fear of never being able to continue it, to
excel it; that the triumph of today was always to be the torture of
tomorrow! Oh, Agnes, the agony of success to a nervous, sensitive man;
the dismal apprehension that fills his life and gives each victory a voice
to cry out "Hear, hear! Bravo, bravo, bravo! But this is to be your
last--you'll never overtop it!" Ha, yes! I soon found out the weak spot
in my armour--the need of constant encouragement, constant reminder
of my powers; [taking her hand] the need of that subtle sympathy
which a sacrificing, unselfish woman alone possesses the secret of.
[Rising.] Well, my very weakness might have been a source of
greatness if, three years ago, it had been to such a woman that I had
bound myself--a woman of your disposition; instead of to--! Ah! [She
lays her hand upon his arm soothingly.]
LUCAS. Yes, yes. [Taking her in his arms.] I know I have such a
companion now.
AGNES. Yes--now--
LUCAS. You must be everything to me, Agnes--a double faculty, as it
were. When my confidence in myself is shaken, you must try to keep
the consciousness of my poor powers alive in me.
AGNES. I shall not fail you in that, Lucas.

LUCAS. And yet, whenever disturbing recollections come uppermost;
when I catch myself mourning for those lost opportunities of mine; it is
your love that must grant me oblivion--[kissing her upon the lips]--
your love! [She makes no response, and after a pause gently releases
herself and retreats a step or two.]
LUCAS. [His eyes following her.] Agnes, you seem to me to be
changing towards me, growing colder to me. At times you seem
positively to shrink from me. I don't understand it. Yesterday I thought
I saw you look at me as if I--frightened you!
AGNES. Lucas--Lucas dear, for some weeks, now, I've wanted to say
this to you.
LUCAS. What?
AGNES. Don't you think that such a union as ours would be much
braver, much more truly courageous, if it could but be--be--
LUCAS. If it could but be--what?
AGNES. [Averting her eyes.] Devoid of passion, if passion had no
share in it.
LUCAS. Surely this comes a little late, Agnes, between you and me.
AGNES. [Leaning upon the back of a chair, staring before her and
speaking in a low, steady voice.] What has been was inevitable, I
suppose. Still, we have hardly yet set foot upon the path we've agreed
to follow. It is not too late for us, in our own lives, to pit the highest
interpretation upon that word--Love. Think of the inner sustaining
power it would give us! [More forcibly.] We agree to go through the
world together, preaching the lesson taught us by our experiences. We
cry out to all people, "Look at us! Man and woman who are in the
bondage of neither law nor ritual! Linked simply by mutual trust! Man
and wife, but something better than man and wife! Friends, but even
something better than friends!" I say there is that which is noble, finely
defiant, in the future we have mapped out for ourselves, if only--if

only--
LUCAS. Yes?
AGNES. [Turning from him.] If only it could be free from passion!
LUCAS.