Page:The Yellow Book - 01.djvu/187

Rh Harold.I can't be always dangling at your apron-strings.

Lucy.Harold!

Harold.If we are going to be married, we

Lucy. If?

Harold.Well, when, if you like it better; we shall see enough of one another then. I have written to you, it isn't as though I hadn't done that.

Lucy.But that is not the same thing as seeing you; and your letters, too, have been so scrappy.[Harold throws himself into the arm-chair.]They used to be so different before your book came out.

Harold.I had more time then.

Lucy.I sometimes wish that it had never been published at all, that you had never written it, or, at all events, that it had never been such a success.

Harold.That's kind, at all events—deuced kind and considerate!

Lucy.It seems to have come between us as a barrier. When I think how eagerly we looked forward to its appearance, what castles in the air we built as to how happy we were going to be, and all the things we were going to do, if it were a success, and now to think that

Harold.[Jumps up.]Look here, Lucy, I'm damned if—I can't stand this much longer! Nag, nag, nag! I can't stand it. I am worked off my head during the day, I am out half the night, and when I come here for a little quiet, a little rest, its—[Breaks off suddenly].

Lucy.I am so sorry. If I had thought

Harold. Can't you see that you are driving me mad? I have been here half an hour, and the whole of the time it has been nothing but reproaches.

Lucy. I don't think they would hove affected you so much if you hadn't felt that you deserved them!

Rh