That's odd, isn't it? considering
that I am not at all a sentimental man.
GLORIA (uneasily, rising). Let us go back to the beach.
VALENTINE (darkly---looking up at her). What! you feel it, too?
GLORIA. Feel what?
VALENTINE. Dread.
GLORIA. Dread!
VALENTINE. As if something were going to happen. It came over me
suddenly just before you proposed that we should run away to the others.
GLORIA (amazed). That's strange---very strange! I had the same
presentiment.
VALENTINE. How extraordinary! (Rising.) Well: shall we run away?
GLORIA. Run away! Oh, no: that would be childish. (She sits down
again. He resumes his seat beside her, and watches her with a gravely
sympathetic air. She is thoughtful and a little troubled as she adds)
I wonder what is the scientific explanation of those fancies that cross
us occasionally!
VALENTINE. Ah, I wonder! It's a curiously helpless sensation: isn't
it?
GLORIA (rebelling against the word). Helpless?
VALENTINE. Yes. As if Nature, after allowing us to belong to
ourselves and do what we judged right and reasonable for all these
years, were suddenly lifting her great hand to take us---her two little
children---by the scruff's of our little necks, and use us, in spite of
ourselves, for her own purposes, in her own way.
GLORIA. Isn't that rather fanciful?
VALENTINE (with a new and startling transition to a tone of utter
recklessness).
Pages:
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103