The wife.  Who wants the natural?

Prof. [Grumbling] Umm!  Wish I thought that!  Modern taste!  History may go hang; they’re all for tuppence-coloured sentiment nowadays.

The wife. [As if to herself] Is the Spring sentiment?

Prof.  I beg your pardon, my dear; I didn’t catch.

Wife. [As if against her will—­urged by some pent-up force] Beauty, beauty!

Prof.  That’s what I’m, trying to say here.  The Orpheus legend symbolizes to this day the call of Beauty! [He takes up his pen, while she continues to stare out at the moonlight.  Yawning] Dash it!  I get so sleepy; I wish you’d tell them to make the after-dinner coffee twice as strong.

Wife.  I will.

Prof.  How does this strike you? [Conning] “Many Renaissance pictures, especially those of Botticelli, Francesca and Piero di Cosimo were inspired by such legends as that of Orpheus, and we owe a tiny gem—­like Raphael ‘Apollo and Marsyas’ to the same Pagan inspiration.”

Wife.  We owe it more than that—­rebellion against the dry-as-dust.

Prof.  Quite.  I might develop that:  “We owe it our revolt against the academic; or our disgust at ‘big business,’ and all the grossness of commercial success.  We owe——­“. [His voice peters out.]

Wife.  It—­love.

Prof. [Abstracted] Eh!

Wife.  I said:  We owe it love.

Prof. [Rather startled] Possibly.  But—­er [With a dry smile]
I mustn’t say that here—­hardly!

Wife. [To herself and the moonlight] Orpheus with his lute!

Prof.  Most people think a lute is a sort of flute. [Yawning heavily] My dear, if you’re not going to sing again, d’you mind sitting down?  I want to concentrate.

Wife.  I’m going out.

Prof.  Mind the dew!

Wife.  The Christian virtues and the dew.

Prof. [With a little dry laugh] Not bad!  Not bad!  The Christian virtues and the dew. [His hand takes up his pen, his face droops over his paper, while his wife looks at him with a very strange face] “How far we can trace the modern resurgence against the Christian virtues to the symbolic figures of Orpheus, Pan, Apollo, and Bacchus might be difficult to estimate, but——­”

     [During those words his wife has passed through the window into
     the moonlight, and her voice rises, singing as she goes: 
     “Orpheus with his lute, with his lute made trees . . .”]

Prof. [Suddenly aware of something] She’ll get her throat bad. [He is silent as the voice swells in the distance] Sounds queer at night-H’m! [He is silent—­Yawning.  The voice dies away.  Suddenly his head nods; he fights his drowsiness; writes a word or two, nods again, and in twenty seconds is asleep.]