You mustn't! I _am_ afraid now! I made you say it. [_Smiling and crying._] I have always wanted to make you say it. I have always sworn you shouldn't.
[_He takes her in his arms, a silent embrace with only the bland blasé moon looking on._
It is because I love you that I didn't want you to say it--only I did. It is because I love you that I went abroad--to stay, only I couldn't! I couldn't stay away! [_She holds his face in her hands._] Oh, do you know how I love you? No!... you're only a _man_!
Every day there in the laboratory, when you in your apron--that dear apron which I stole from your locker when you left me--when you asked for orders--did you know that I wanted to say: "Love me"! Every day when you took up your work, did you never guess that I wanted to take you up in my arms?
Thank God I didn't! For while we worked there together I came to know you as few men ever know the women they desire. Woman can be more than sex, as man is more than sex. And all this makes man and woman not less but more _overwhelmingly_ desirable and necessary to each other, and makes both things last--not for a few years, but forever!
[_Sound of voices approaching from the garden. The lovers separate. It is JEAN and REX, REX laughing, JEAN dodging until caught and kissed._
No, no--it's time to dress.... Be good, Rex--don't!
[_Without seeing HELEN and ERNEST, they disappear into the house. HELEN is suddenly changed, as if awakened from a spell of enchantment._
What have we done! This is all moonlight and madness. To-morrow comes the clear light of day.
But we cannot marry--then or any other to-morrow.
I have slaved for you all these months--not because I wanted to win you from your work but to help you in it. And now--after all--shall I destroy you? No! No!
I _love_ you--you love _me_--nothing else matters.
Everything else matters. I'm not a little débutante to be persuaded that I am needed because I am wanted! I haven't _played_ with you; I have _worked_ with you, and I _know_! Think of Theodore! Think of Lucy! And now poor little Jean. Marry you? Never!
[_with the same scorn and a snap of the fingers_]
Then _that_ for my career. I'll go back into private practice and make a million.
That's just what I said you'd do. Just what you must not do! Your work is needed by the world.