DR. FRELICH: Yes. I see.

VASHYA: And I did! I set to work very hard and I worked my way up. From the bottom. Acquired wealth and prestige. Importance. Power. Yes! You see? —She married me . . .

DR. FRELICH: And you were satisfied?

VASHYA: Never quite satisfied. [Pause.] I had to work harder all the time and get more to make her respect me. I think she did respect me, Doctor, but she never saw things in quite my way—and when the war started, these strange ideas about me began to take hold of her and she became . . .

DR. FRELICH: Cold to you?

VASHYA: Yes, colder and colder! And now to see her completely turned against me like this! You can understand how I feel.

DR. FRELICH: Yes, I can appreciate your grief, Sir Vashya.

VASHYA: My—? Yes, my grief! [Almost inaudibly.] Her little blue violet eyes, Doctor—Excuse me!—To see them looking at me like this! So—hatefully! It’s an almost insupportable grief!

DR. FRELICH: Hmmmm. It’s plain to see you’re a man of genuine sentiment.

VASHYA [pleased]: Sentiment! Yes! I’m really a man of— [A little suspiciously.] What did you call it?

DR. FRELICH [earnestly]: Genuine sentiment.

VASHYA: Yes, yes, I am! I wouldn’t admit that to everyone, but nevertheless it’s perfectly true.

DR. FRELICH: I don’t for one moment doubt it.

VASHYA: Have a cigar!

DR. FRELICH: Thanks.

VASHYA: They’re fine cigars. The best obtainable at any price. Hmmm. You think you can help her, Doctor?

DR. FRELICH: These things are sometimes quite transitory.

VASHYA: Yes, I think she cares for me, Doctor. There used to be . . . a great passion between us! [Pause.] But an—an unfortunate thing happened. . . . There was a young man. . . .

DR. FRELICH: Yes?

VASHYA: He was a radical, a pacifist, a young poet and all that stuff!

DR. FRELICH [understandingly]: I see. One of these impractical dreamers that women find so unaccountably interesting at times.

VASHYA: I won’t say much about him. He was rather well known. His work appeared in magazines, you see, and these ridiculous ART lovers were making quite a fuss over it. Personally I could see nothing in it. A lot of rubbish. It made absolutely no sense. But my wife . . .

DR. FRELICH: She found him—different?

VASHYA: He became infatuated with her. Sometime last winter, at a party or something. And he started paying her visits. She felt, no doubt, a sort of—of casual affection for him, you see? Nothing more than that!

DR. FRELICH: Yes.

VASHYA: And he misunderstood. He paid her too much attention. Said things— And I was informed. Shortly afterwards the young man was drafted into the army and called to the front and killed in action! They made quite a fuss about it in all the papers. Young genius sacrificed to the bloody monster of war—and all of that—the usual tripe! It was a very unfortunate business, the boy being killed. And after that— poor Lillian, my wife—she thought I was somehow responsible. He’s one of the—the dead soldiers that she thinks have returned from their graves to haunt me. Imagine that, Doctor! Me, Vashya Shontine, the man who gave them the guns to fight with, to defend their own lives!