GEORGE (overwrought).  Stop it!  What do you mean?  Have you no heart?  Do you think I want to lose you, Olivia?  Do you think I want my home broken up like this?  Haven’t you been happy with me these last five years?

OLIVIA.  Very happy.

GEORGE.  Well then, how can you talk like that?

OLIVIA (pathetically).  But you want to send me away.

GEORGE.  There you go again.  I don’t want to.  I have hardly had time to realise just what it will mean to me when you go.  The fact is I simply daren’t realise it.  I daren’t think about it.

OLIVIA (earnestly).  Try thinking about it, George.

GEORGE.  And you talk as if I wanted to send you away!

OLIVIA.  Try thinking about it, George.

GEORGE.  You don’t seem to understand that I’m not sending you away. 
You simply aren’t mine to keep.

OLIVIA.  Whose am I?

GEORGE.  Your husband’s.  Telworthy’s.

OLIVIA (gently).  If I belong to anybody but myself, I think I belong to you.

GEORGE.  Not in the eyes of the Law.  Not in the eyes of the Church.  Not even in the eyes of—­er——­

OLIVIA.  The County?

GEORGE (annoyed).  I was about to say “Heaven.”

OLIVIA (unimpressed).  Oh!

GEORGE.  That this should happen to us! (He gets up and walks about the room, wondering when he will wake up from this impossible dream, OLIVIA works in silence.  Then she stands up and shakes out her curtains.)

OLIVIA (looking at them).  I do hope Jacko will like these.

GEORGE.  What!  You——­ (Going up to her) Olivia, Olivia, have you no heart?

OLIVIA.  Ought you to talk like that to another man’s wife?

GEORGE.  Confound it, is this just a joke to you?

OLIVIA.  You must forgive me, George; I am a little over-excited—­at the thought of returning to Jacob, I suppose.

GEORGE.  Do you want to return to him?

OLIVIA.  One wants to do what is right.  In the eyes of—­er—­Heaven.

GEORGE.  Seeing what sort of man he is, I have no doubt that you could get a separation, supposing that he didn’t—­er—­divorce you.  I don’t know what is best.  I must consult my solicitor.  The whole position has been sprung on us, and—­(miserably) I don’t know, I don’t know.  I can’t take it all in.

OLIVIA.  Wouldn’t you like to consult your Aunt Julia too?  She could tell you what the County—­I mean what Heaven really thought about it.

GEORGE.  Yes, yes.  Aunt Julia has plenty of common sense.  You’re quite right, Olivia.  This isn’t a thing we can keep from the family.

OLIVIA.  Do I still call her Aunt Julia?

GEORGE (looking up from his pacings).  What?  What? (ANNE comes in.)
Well, what is it?

ANNE.  Mr. Pim says he will come down at once, sir.

GEORGE.  Oh, thank you, thank you.