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