eally beautiful poems were
written in _our_ time.

MARGARET. And so you think the credit of them is really yours?

GILBERT. Would you have written them if I had never existed? Weren't
they written to _me_?

MARGARET. No.

GILBERT. What? Not written to me? Oh, that's monstrous!

MARGARET. No, they were not written to you.

GILBERT. You take my breath away! Shall I remind you of the situations
in which your finest verses had their origin?

MARGARET. They were addressed to an ideal ... (GILBERT points to
himself.) ... whose earthly representative you happened to be.

GILBERT. Ha! That's fine! Where did you get it? Do you know what the
French say in such circumstances? "That is literature!"

MARGARET (imitating his tone). "That is _not_ literature!" That is the
truth--the absolute truth. Or do you really believe that I meant you by
the slender youth--that I sang hymns of praise to your locks? Even in
those days you were ... well, not slender; and I shouldn't call this
locks. (Passes her hand over his hair. Taking the opportunity, he
seizes her hand and kisses it. In a softer voice.) What are you
thinking of?

GILBERT. You thought so in those days--or at least that was your name
for it. Ah, what won't poets say for the sake of a smooth verse, a
sounding rhyme? Didn't I call you once, in a sonnet, "my wise maiden?"
And all the time you were neither ... No, I mustn't be unjust to
you--you _were_ wise, confoundedly wise, revoltingly wise! And it has
paid you. But one oughtn't to be surprised; you were always a snob at
heart. Well, now you've got what you wanted. You caught your prey, your
blue-blooded youth with the well-kept hands and the neglected brain,
the splendid rider, fencer, shot, tennis-player, heart-breaker--Marlitt
couldn't have invented anything more disgusting. What more do you want?
Whether it will always content you, that knew something higher once, is
of course another question. I can only say this one thing to you--in my
eyes you are a renegade from love.

MARGARET. You thought that up in the train.

GILBERT. I thought it up just now--just a moment ago!

MARGARET. Write it down, then--it's good.

GILBERT. What was it that attracted you to a man of this sort? Nothing
but the old instinct, the common instinct!

MARGARET. I don't think _you've_ got any right ...

GILBERT. My dear child, in the old days I had a soul too to offer you.

MARGARET. Oh, at times, only this ...

GILBERT. Don't try