Margaret.
Hush! Leave this to me, auntie!
Doctor.
Yes, leave it to her, Marie. Margaret knows what
she's doing.
Margaret.
[Drawing Freda back into her chair, speaking rapidly, passionately.] Listen, dear. Sir Robert
Temple is not the good man you suppose him to be,
but a cruel tyrant, who persuaded the English to
begin this wicked war, and has been the real cause
of untold suffering among our people. My father—Otto's and mine—I told you in my letters our poor
father was dead, but I didn't tell you how he died.
He died in prison. Yes, in prison—killed, murdered,
for doing what any good man would have done for
his Fatherland. Sir Robert Temple did that, too.
And now he is going to shut us all up in internment
camps—behind barbed wire—men and women as
well, perhaps—and treat us like lepers and dogs.
Yet we can't retaliate. He is so far above us that
we can't reach him to punish him. But if only
somebody could get close to him—some woman by
preference—into his house, as governess or secretary—she might find a way—who knows?—to put an
end to his tyrannies. Let me go in your place, dear,
let me, let me.
Freda.
[Troubled.] But think—think of the risk.
Margaret.
There would be no risk for you, and I can take
care of myself, dear.
