Hillcrist. Aren’t you fond of your home?

Jill.  Of course.  I love it.

Hillcrist. Well, you won’t be able to live in it unless we stop that ruffian.  Chimneys and smoke, the trees cut down, piles of pots.  Every kind of abomination.  There! [He points] Imagine! [He points through the French window, as if he could see those chimneys rising and marring the beauty of the fields] I was born here, and my father, and his, and his, and his.  They loved those fields, and those old trees.  And this barbarian, with his “improvement” schemes, forsooth!  I learned to ride in the Centry meadows—­prettiest spring meadows in the world; I’ve climbed every tree there.  Why my father ever sold——!  But who could have imagined this?  And come at a bad moment, when money’s scarce.

Jill. [Cuddling his arm] Dodo!

Hillcrist. Yes.  But you don’t love the place as I do, Jill.  You youngsters don’t love anything, I sometimes think.

Jill.  I do, Dodo, I do!

Hillcrist. You’ve got it all before you.  But you may live your life and never find anything so good and so beautiful as this old home.  I’m not going to have it spoiled without a fight.

[Conscious of batting betrayed Sentiment, he walks out at the French window, passing away to the right.  Jill following to the window, looks.  Then throwing back her head, she clasps her hands behind it.]

Jill.  Oh—­oh-oh!

     [A voice behind her says, “Jill!” She turns and starts back,
     leaning against the right lintel of the window.  Rolf appears
     outside the window from Left.]

Who goes there?

Role. [Buttressed against the Left lintel] Enemy—­after Chloe’s bag.

Jill.  Pass, enemy!  And all’s ill!

     [Rolf passes through the window, and retrieves the vanity bag
     from the floor where Chloe dropped it, then again takes his
     stand against the Left lintel of the French window.]

Rolf.  It’s not going to make any difference, is it?

Jill.  You know it is.

Rolf.  Sins of the fathers.

Jill.  Unto the third and fourth generations.  What sin has my father committed?

Rolf.  None, in a way; only, I’ve often told you I don’t see why you should treat us as outsiders.  We don’t like it.

Jill.  Well, you shouldn’t be, then; I mean, he shouldn’t be.

Rolf.  Father’s just as human as your father; he’s wrapped up in us, and all his “getting on” is for us.  Would you like to be treated as your mother treated Chloe?  Your mother’s set the stroke for the other big-wigs about here; nobody calls on Chloe.  And why not?  Why not?  I think it’s contemptible to bar people just because they’re new, as you call it, and have to make their position instead of having it left them.