AUNT ISABEL:  Why, yes, dearest.  Don’t turn away from me Madeline.  Don’t—­don’t be strange.  I wonder if you realize how your uncle has worked to have life a happy thing for all of us?  Be a little generous to him.  He’s had this great burden of bringing something from another day on into this day.  It is not as simple as it may seem.  He’s done it as best he could.  It will hurt him as nothing has ever hurt him if you now undo that work of his life.  Truly, dear, do you feel you know enough about it to do that?  Another thing:  people are a little absurd out of their own places.  We need to be held in our relationships—­against our background—­or we are—­I don’t know—­grotesque.  Come now, Madeline, where’s your sense of humour?  Isn’t it a little absurd for you to leave home over India’s form of government?

MADELINE:  It’s not India.  It’s America.  A sense of humour is nothing to hide behind!

AUNT ISABEL:  (with a laugh) I knew I wouldn’t be a success at world affairs—­better leave that to Professor Holden. (a quick keen look from MADELINE) They’ve driven on to the river—­they’ll be back for me, and then he wants to stop in for a visit with you while I take Mrs Holden for a further ride.  I’m worried about her.  She doesn’t gain strength at all since her operation.  I’m going to try keeping her out in the air all I can.

MADELINE:  It’s dreadful about families!

AUNT ISABEL:  Dreadful?  Professor Holden’s devotion to his wife is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

MADELINE:  And is that all you see it in?

AUNT ISABEL:  You mean the—­responsibility it brings?  Oh, well—­that’s what life is.  Doing for one another.  Sacrificing for one another.

MADELINE:  I hope I never have a family.

AUNT ISABEL:  Well, I hope you do.  You’ll miss the best of life if you don’t.  Anyway, you have a family.  Where is your father?

MADELINE:  I don’t know.

AUNT ISABEL:  I’d like to see him.

MADELINE:  There’s no use seeing him today.

AUNT ISABEL:  He’s—?

MADELINE:  Strange—­shut in—­afraid something’s going to be taken from him.

AUNT ISABEL:  Poor Ira.  So much has been taken from him.  And now you.  Don’t hurt him again, Madeline.  He can’t bear it.  You see what it does to him.

MADELINE:  He has—­the wrong idea about things.

AUNT ISABEL:  ‘The wrong idea!’ Oh, my child—­that’s awfully young and hard.  It’s so much deeper than that.  Life has made him into something—­something he can’t escape.

MADELINE:  (with what seems sullenness) Well, I don’t want to be made into that thing.

AUNT ISABEL:  Of course not.  But you want to help him, don’t you?  Now, dear—­about your birthday party—­

MADELINE:  The United States Commissioner is giving me my birthday party.