ETHEL.  Professor Ivanoff, are you following Lord Hawcastle and your wife?

IVANOFF.  My wife exists no longer for me.

ETHEL.  But Lord Hawcastle?  Do you mean to follow him?

IVANOFF [with great feeling].  No, no, no!  I could not hurt his body—­I could not.  The suffering of a man is here—­here!  What is it he has of most value in this world?  It is that name of his.  Except for that, he is poor, and that I shall destroy.  He shall not go in his clubs; he shall not go among his own class, and in the streets they will point at him.  His story and mine shall be made—­ah, but too well known!  And that name of which he and all his family have been so proud, it shall be disgrace and dishonor to bear.

ETHEL [sadly].  Already it is that.

IVANOFF.  But I forget myself.  I talk so ugly.

ETHEL.  It is not in my heart to blame you.  Your wrongs have given you the right.

IVANOFF [kissing her hand].  God bless you always!

[Illustration:  “MY FRIEND, THERE IS SAND IN YOUR GEAR-BOX”]

[He takes PIKE’S hand, tries to speak, but chokes up and cannot.  He goes into the hotel.]

PIKE.  There are some good people over here, aren’t there?

ETHEL.  When you’re home again I hope you will remember them.

PIKE.  I will.

ETHEL.  And I hope you will forget everything I’ve ever said.

PIKE.  Somehow it doesn’t seem as if I very likely would.

ETHEL [coming toward him].  Oh yes, you will!  All those unkind things
I’ve said to you—­

PIKE.  Oh, I’ll forget those easy!

ETHEL [going on eagerly, but almost tearfully].  And the other things, too, when you’re once more among your kind, good home folks you like so well—­and probably there’s one among them that you’ll be so glad to get back to you’ll hardly know you’ve been away—­an unworldly girl—­[she falters]—­one that doesn’t need to be cured—­oh! of all sorts of follies—­a kind girl, one who’s been always sweet to you. [Turns away from him.] I can see her—­she wears a white muslin and waits by the gate for you at twilight [turns to him again]—­isn’t she like that?

PIKE [shaking his head gravely].  No; not like that.

ETHEL.  But there is some one there?—­some one that you’ve cared for?

PIKE [sadly].  Well, she’s only been there in a way.  I’ve had her picture on my desk for a good while.  Sometimes when I go home in the evening she kind of seems to be there.  I bought a homey old house up on Main Street, you know; it’s the house you were born in.  It’s kind of lonesome sometimes, and then I get to thinking that she’s there, sitting at an old piano, that used to be my mother’s, and singing to me—­

ETHEL [smiling sorrowfully].  Singing “Sweet Genevieve”?

PIKE.  Yes—­that’s my favorite.  But then I come to and I find it ain’t so, no voice comes to me, and I find there ain’t anybody but me [swallows painfully], and it’s so foolish that even Jim Cooley can write me letters making fun of it!