AMY. [Aimlessly.] I went to a man at Dover ... picked him out of the directory ... didn’t give my own name ... pretended I was off abroad.  He was a kind old thing ... said it was all most satisfactory.  Oh, my God!

TREBELL. [He goes to bend over her kindly.] Yes, you’ve had a torturing month or two.  That’s been wrong, I’m sorry.

AMY.  Even now I have to keep telling myself that it’s so ... otherwise I couldn’t understand it.  Any more than one really believes one will ever die ... one doesn’t believe that, you know.

TREBELL. [On the edge of a sensation that is new to him.] I am told that a man begins to feel unimportant from this moment forward.  Perhaps it’s true.

AMY.  What has it to do with you anyhow?  We don’t belong to each other.  How long were we together that night?  Half an hour!  You didn’t seem to care a bit until after you’d kissed me and ... this is an absurd consequence.

TREBELL.  Nature’s a tyrant.

AMY.  Oh, it’s my punishment ...  I see that well enough ... for thinking myself so clever ... forgetting my duty and religion ... not going to confession, I mean. [Then hysterically.] God can make you believe in Him when he likes, can’t he?

TREBELL. [With comfortable strength.] My dear girl, this needs your pluck. [And he sits by her.] All we have to do is to prevent it being found out.

AMY.  Yes ... the scandal would smash you, wouldn’t it?

TREBELL.  There isn’t going to be any scandal.

AMY.  No ... if we’re careful.  You’ll tell me what to do, won’t you?  Oh, it’s a relief to be able to talk about it.

TREBELL.  For one thing, you must take care of yourself and stop worrying.

      It soothes her to feel that he is concerned; but it is not enough to
      be soothed.

AMY.  Yes, I wouldn’t like to have been the means of smashing you, Henry ... especially as you don’t care for me.

TREBELL.  I intend to care for you.

AMY.  Love me, I mean.  I wish you did ... a little; then perhaps I shouldn’t feel so degraded.

TREBELL. [A shade impatiently, a shade contemptuously] I can say I love you if that’ll make things easier.

AMY. [More helpless than ever.] If you’d said it at first I should be taking it for granted ... though it wouldn’t be any more true, I daresay, than now ... when I should know you weren’t telling the truth.

TREBELL.  Then I’d do without so much confusion.

AMY.  Don’t be so heartless.

TREBELL. [As he leaves her.] We seem to be attaching importance to such different things.

AMY. [Shrill even at a momentary desertion.] What do you mean?  I want affection now just as I want food.  I can’t do without it ...  I can’t reason things out as you can.  D’you think I haven’t tried? [Then in sudden rebellion.] Oh, the physical curse of being a woman ... no better than any savage in this condition ... worse off than an animal.  It’s unfair.