Part 74 (1/2)

MELISANDE. Very easy for you, I should think.

GERVASE. But not for you?

MELISANDE (bitterly). You dress up and amuse yourself, and then laugh and go back to your ordinary life again--you don't want to remember _that_, do you, every time you do it?

GERVASE. You let your hair down and flirt with me and laugh and go home again, but _you_ can't forget. Why should I?

MELISANDE (furiously). How dare you say I flirted with you?

GERVASE. How dare you say I laughed at you?

MELISANDE. Do you think I knew you would be there when I went up to the wood?

GERVASE. Do you think _I_ knew you would be there when _I_ went up?

MELISANDE. Then why were you there all dressed up like that?

GERVASE. My car broke down and I spent the night in it. I went up the hill to look for breakfast.

MELISANDE. Breakfast! That's all you think about.

GERVASE (cheerfully). Well, it's always cropping up.

MELISANDE (in disgust). Oh! (She moves away from him and then turns round holding out her hand) Good-bye, Mr. Mallory.

GERVASE (taking it). Good-bye, Miss Knowle. . . . (Gently) May I kiss your hands, Melisande?

MELISANDE (pathetically). Oh, don't! (She hides her face in them.)

GERVASE. Dear hands. . . . May I kiss your lips, Melisande? (She says nothing. He comes closer to her) Melisande!

(He is about to put his arms round her, but she breaks away from him.)

MELISANDE. Oh, don't, don't! What's the good of pretending? It was only pretence this morning--what's the good of going on with it? I thought you were so different from other men, but you're just the same, just the same. You talk about the things they talk about, you wear the clothes they wear. You were my true knight, my fairy Prince, this morning, and this afternoon you come down dressed like that (she waves her hand at it) and tell me that you are on the Stock Exchange!

Oh, can't you see what you've done? All the beautiful world that I had built up for you and me--shattered, shattered.

GERVASE (going to her). Melisande!

MELISANDE. No, no!

GERVASE (stopping). All right.

MELISANDE (recovering herself). Please go.

GERVASE (with a smile). Well, that's not quite fair, you know.

MELISANDE. What do you mean?

GERVASE. Well, what about _my_ beautiful world--the world that _I_ had built up?