Don't! [_Controls herself, then, in a low voice_] Bob is _still_ at the Law School, Helen.
It wouldn't be fair. It takes so long to get started. Everything costs so much. Why, nowadays, men in the professions, unless they have private means, can't marry until nearly _forty_. When Bob is forty I'll be forty, Helen.
Oh, we'll get over it, I suppose.... People do! Some day, perhaps, he'll smile and say: "Just think, I once loved _that_ fat old thing!" [_Suddenly changes to sobbing._] Helen! when Rex caught me and kissed me I shut my eyes and tried to think it was Bob.
But that isn't the worst! When he held me fast and I couldn't get away, I began ... to forget Bob ... to forget everything ... [_Breaks off, overcome with shame._] But not now, not now! It's not the same thing at all. [_Buries face in HELEN'S breast and sobs it out._] Oh, I feel like the devil, dear.... And all this time he doesn't really want me--he wants you, you! I trapped him into it; I trapped him!
And I know Rex--he's a good sport; he'll stick to it, if you do, dear--only you won't! You've caught him by playing on his worst--don't hold him by playing on his best!
But what shall I do? I'm nearly twenty-six. I've got to escape from home in some way.
Ready, Jean? [_To HELEN._] Lucy and John and your Cousin Theodore are in there having a fine, old-fashioned family fight with the judge.
They shut up when they saw me. All I heard was the parson--"Marriage is a social institution." Grand old row, though. [_A BUTLER and FOOTMAN appear, wheeling a tea-wagon._] Looks as if they were coming out here.
Then I am going in. [_Detaining JEAN._] You will follow my advice?
Oh, I don't know. Soon or late I must follow the only profession I have learned.
[_JEAN leaves with REX. HELEN watches them, sighs, and goes in. The SERVANTS arrange the tea-table and go into the house._
_LUCY comes out, followed by her husband, JOHN, and the JUDGE, who is UNCLE EVERETT, and COUSIN THEODORE._
_JOHN, the masterful type of successful American business man; well set up, close-cropped mustache, inclined to baldness; keen eye, vibrant voice, quick movements, quick decisions, quick temper._
_UNCLE EVERETT is a genial satirist with a cynical tolerance of the ways of the world, which he understands, laughs at, and rather likes._