Roger!  You shan’t say that!  You shan’t!

ROGER

I don’t want to, Margaret, but that’s what life itself says.  We can’t get behind life.  We can’t beat evolution and the law of survival.

MARGARET

But his talent, his fine talent—­and his exquisite nature!

ROGER

I know.  But there it is.  It’s kinder in the long run to be cruel, if the truth is cruel.  We’ve got to be true to things as they are.

MARGARET

But take things as they are!  He wasn’t vicious about—­about women, he was like a child.  Of course they got his money, but even so, they weren’t all mere schemers.  Some of them were very decent.  Why, one of them—­

ROGER

What the deuce do you know about them?  What about one of them?

MARGARET

She cried.  She said she knew it wasn’t right, that he couldn’t marry her, but she did like him, and she had children of her own....  I’m sure she was very tender to him.

ROGER

Who told you?  Where did you see her?

MARGARET

There.

ROGER

There!  In my own house?

MARGARET

Yes.

ROGER

How did she get there?

MARGARET

Your mother sent for her.

ROGER

My mother sent for her?  Then she knew?

MARGARET

Yes.  She knew everything.

ROGER

How?

MARGARET

He told her—­Arthur did.

ROGER

Good Lord!  I never heard a word of it.

MARGARET

No.  They were afraid—­afraid you wouldn’t understand.

ROGER

Afraid I wouldn’t understand?  Why, I understood only too well.  It was mother that wouldn’t have understood.  I’d have cut my hand off rather than tell her.

MARGARET

Well, she did understand.  She understood better than you did.  She understood that part of him hadn’t grown up.  He was like a boy.  He just walked into things....