Richard
[Quietly.] Go away. You, and not I, would be necessary to her. Alone as I was before I met her.
Robert
[Rubs his hands nervously.] A nice little load on my conscience!
Richard
[Abstractedly.] You met my son when you came to my house this afternoon. He told me. What did you feel?
Robert
[Promptly.] Pleasure.
Richard
Nothing else?
Robert
Nothing else. Unless I thought of two things at the same time. I am like that. If my best friend lay in his coffin and his face had a comic expression I should smile. [With a little gesture of despair.] I am like that. But I should suffer too, deeply.
Richard
You spoke of conscience . . . Did he seem to you a child only—or an angel?
Robert
[Shakes his head.] No. Neither an angel nor an Anglo-Saxon. Two things, by the way, for which I have very little sympathy.
Richard
Never then? Never even . . . with her? Tell me. I wish to know.
Robert
I feel in my heart something different. I believe that
