Charteris.  Yes; but then I learn so much more from my experiments than he does!  And the victims learn as much as I do.  That’s where my moral superiority comes in.

Julia (sitting down again on the couch with rueful humour).  Well, you shall not experiment on me any more.  Go to your Grace if you want a victim.  She’ll be a tough one.

Charteris (reproachfully sitting down beside her).  And you drove me to propose to her to escape from you!  Suppose she had accepted me, where should I be now?

Julia.  Where I am, I suppose, now that I have accepted Paramore.

Charteris.  But I should have made Grace unhappy. (Julia sneers).  However, now I come to think of it, you’ll make Paramore unhappy.  And yet if you refused him he would be in despair.  Poor devil!

Julia (her temper flashing up for a moment again).  He is a better man than you.

Charteris (humbly).  I grant you that, my dear.

Julia (impetuously).  Don’t call me your dear.  And what do you mean by saying that I shall make him unhappy?  Am I not good enough for him?

Charteris (dubiously).  Well, that depends on what you mean by good enough.

Julia (earnestly).  You might have made me good if you had chosen to.  You had a great power over me.  I was like a child in your hands; and you knew it.

Charteris (with comic acquiescence).  Yes, my dear.  That means that whenever you got jealous and flew into a violent rage, I could always depend on it’s ending happily if I only waited long enough, and petted you very hard all the time.  When you had had your fling, and called the object of your jealousy every name you could lay your tongue to, and abused me to your heart’s content for a couple of hours, then the reaction would come; and you would at last subside into a soothing rapture of affection which gave you a sensation of being angelically good and forgiving.  Oh, I know that sort of goodness!  You may have thought on these occasions that I was bringing out your latent amiability; but I thought you were bringing out mine, and using up rather more than your fair share of it.

Julia.  According to you, then, I have no good in me!  I am an utterly vile, worthless woman.  Is that it?

Charteris.  Yes, if you are to be judged as you judge others.  From the conventional point of view, there’s nothing to be said for you, Julia—­nothing.  That’s why I have to find some other point of view to save my self-respect when I remember how I have loved you.  Oh, what I have learnt from you!—­from you, who could learn nothing from me!  I made a fool of you; and you brought me wisdom:  I broke your heart; and you brought me joy:  I made you curse your womanhood; and you revealed my manhood to me.  Blessings forever and ever on my Julia’s name! (With genuine emotion, he takes her hand to kiss it again.)