KREUZER: Why did he want to see his uncle so suddenly, Mrs. Callifer?

Silence.

SARA: All right. You can sit there and wait for him to die. I can’t. Will you drive me to town, Dr. Kreuzer?

KREUZER: If you wish me to.

SARA: I’m going to pack my bags. Someone else will have to decorate—for Children’s Day.

Sara leaves. Pause. Then a strained conversation begins.

MRS. CALLIFER: She is very overwrought.

KREUZER: Yes.

MRS. CALLIFER: She won’t really go. It’s just a mood. I would have been happy to put you up, Dr. Kreuzer.

KREUZER: It’s kind of you, but I have to be in London early tomorrow.

Pause.

MRS. CALLIFER: Do you think me a monster too?

KREUZER: No. But perhaps I’ve been treating the wrong patient.

Baston enters.

BASTON: You’re Dr. Kreuzer.

MRS. CALLIFER: This is Dr. Baston. (Baston doesn’t shake hands.)

BASTON (to Mrs. Callifer): Sara seems upset. What’s this about James attempting suicide again?

KREUZER: Again?

BASTON: When he was fourteen he tried to hang himself.

KREUZER: So that was it?

MRS. CALLIFER: Yes.

KREUZER: And now he knows that?

MRS. CALLIFER: Yes.

KREUZER: I wish I had known of it first. Mrs. Callifer, is that all you have to tell me?

MRS. CALLIFER: Yes.

BASTON: Dr. Kreuzer, this matter of the pills—that’s really serious. I think we have to consider whether he wouldn’t be better—for a while—in a home. It’s hard for you, Mary, but—

MRS. CALLIFER: I’ve never believed in captivity, even for animals. Don’t you remember that letter we all signed?

BASTON: This is different. This is for his good.

MRS. CALLIFER: I’ve heard people defend zoos that way. The animals are freed from starvation and fear. Oh yes, I know all those answers, Fred. Don’t hand them out to me. We fought in the same causes.

BASTON: And sometimes we were wrong. Sometimes we were too general and too emotional. We must avoid sentimentality.

MRS. CALLIFER: That’s what we always call a sentiment we don’t share, isn’t it?

BASTON: We have to deal with facts. At fourteen he tried to kill himself. Since then he’s suffered from all kinds of delusions. Melancholia. (James enters through the open door.) A sense of persecution. (Kreuzer and Mrs. Callifer see James. Mrs. Callifer is distressed. She half rises and then sinks down again. Kreuzer leans forward, watching James closely. Baston, his back turned, talking pompously, head lowered, hands behind back, notices nothing.) You hadn’t the chance to observe him, Dr. Kreuzer, when he came here for his father’s funeral. I had.

MRS. CALLIFER: Please, Fred.

BASTON: Let me finish, Mary. I admit I have less experience of psychotics than you, Dr. Kreuzer—

JAMES: I’m sorry to interrupt.

BASTON (quietly): What on earth—

MRS. CALLIFER: What are you doing here, James?