Julia.  Come here.  I have something to say to you.

Charteris.  Yes? (He rolls the chair a few inches towards her.)

Julia.  Come here, I say.  I am not going to shout across the room at you.  Are you afraid of me?

Charteris.  Horribly. (He moves the chair slowly, with great misgiving, to the end of the couch.)

Julia (with studied insolence).  Has that woman told you that she has given you up to me without an attempt to defend her conquest?

Charteris (whispering persuasively).  Shew that you are capable of the same sacrifice.  Give me up, too.

Julia.  Sacrifice!  And so you think I’m dying to marry you, do you?

Charteris.  I am afraid your intentions have been honourable, Julia.

Julia.  You cad!

Charteris (with a sigh).  I confess I am something either more or less than a gentleman, Julia.  You once gave me the benefit of the doubt.

Julia.  Indeed! I never told you so.  If you cannot behave like a gentleman, you had better go back to the society of the woman who has given you up—­if such a cold-blooded, cowardly creature can be called a woman. (She rises majestically; he makes his chair fly back to the table.) I know you now, Leonard Charteris, through and through, in all your falseness, your petty spite, your cruelty and your vanity.  The place you coveted has been won by a man more worthy of it.

Charteris (springing up, and coming close to her, gasping with eagerness).  What do you mean?  Out with it.  Have you accep—­

Julia.  I am engaged to Dr. Paramore.

Charteris (enraptured).  My own Julia! (He attempts to embrace her.)

Julia (recoiling—­he catching her hands and holding them).  How dare you!  Are you mad?  Do you wish me to call Dr. Paramore?

Charteris.  Call everybody, my darling—­everybody in London.  Now I shall no longer have to be brutal—­to defend myself—­to go in fear of you.  How I have looked forward to this day!  You know now that I don’t want you to marry me or to love me:  Paramore can have all that.  I only want to look on and rejoice disinterestedly in the happiness of (kissing her hand) my dear Julia (kissing the other), my beautiful Julia. (She tears her hands away and raises them as if to strike him, as she did the night before at Cuthbertson’s.) No use to threaten me now:  I am not afraid of those hands—­the loveliest hands in the world.

Julia.  How have you the face to turn round like this after insulting and torturing me!

Charteris.  Never mind, dearest:  you never did understand me; and you never will.  Our vivisecting friend has made a successful experiment at last.

Julia (earnestly).  It is you who are the vivisector—­a far crueller, more wanton vivisector than he.