ROGER

How did he ever come to tell her?

MARGARET

Once when he was sick.  Your mother was taking care of him.  He blurted it all out, like a homesick boy.

ROGER

And she understood?  Didn’t break her heart, and all that?

MARGARET

Oh, it was a shock, naturally.  But they talked it all over, and your mother sent for this woman.  I knew.  Arthur knew I knew....

ROGER

And mother packed her away without telling me?

MARGARET

Oh, she didn’t pack her away.  That is, right off.

ROGER

He kept on seeing her?  With mother’s knowledge?

MARGARET

Yes.  Your mother liked her.

ROGER

Well, if women aren’t the strangest things!

MARGARET

Yes, they are.  Some of them.  Fortunately.  But you see how wrong you were,
Roger?

ROGER

How was I wrong?

MARGARET

About this unfitness—­this survival.

ROGER

On the contrary.  It only proves it.

MARGARET

No, it doesn’t.  I’ve been thinking, too ... about saving people from themselves, and all that.  You say it’s the law of life, and we can’t go beyond life.

ROGER

No, we can’t.  I still say it.

MARGARET

Then what about your mother?  What about all women who—­

ROGER

About mother?

MARGARET

Yes.  Wasn’t her love a part of life?  And didn’t she keep on loving him in spite of everything?  Is that love blind and foolish—­something for your old evolution to get rid of?

ROGER

I never thought of it.  No, of course we don’t want to get rid of that—­but even so, she didn’t save him.

MARGARET

She didn’t know about it until lately—­thanks to you.  If she had known sooner—­and anyhow, you don’t know—­Of course, she couldn’t have saved him directly.  But indirectly ... through another woman—­