aking my contract! No court would regard your excited state of mind
as a sufficient justification. I have ten more minutes to give you. If
by that time you have not calmed yourself, Helen--then I cannot leave
you to yourself!

HELEN. Oh let the whole world see me lie here!

GERARDO. Consider what you will risk!

HELEN. As if I had anything left to risk!

GERARDO. You might lose your social position.

HELEN. All I can lose is you!

GERARDO. What about those to whom you belong?

HELEN. I can now belong to no one but you!

GERARDO. But I do not belong to you!

HELEN. I've nothing left to lose but life itself.

GERARDO. How about your children?

HELEN (flaring up). Who took me away from them, Oscar! Who robbed my
children of their mother!

GERARDO. Did I make advances _to you_?

HELEN (with intense passion). No, no! Don't think that for a moment! I
just threw myself at you and should throw myself at you again today! No
husband, no children could restrain me! If I die, I have at least
tasted life! Through you, Oscar! I owe it to you that I have come to
know myself! I have to thank you for it, Oscar!

GERARDO. Helen--now listen to me calmly ...

HELEN. Yes, yes--there are ten minutes left ...

GERARDO. Listen to me calmly ... (Both sit down on the sofa.)

HELEN (staring at him). I have to thank you for it ...

GERARDO. Helen--

HELEN. I don't ask you to love me. If I may but breathe the same air
with you ...!

GERARDO (struggling to preserve his composure). Helen--to a man like me
the conventional rules of life cannot be applied. I have known society
women in all the lands of Europe. They have made me scenes, too, when
it was time for me to leave--but when it came to choosing, I always
knew what I owed to my position. Never yet have I met with such an
outburst of passion as yours. Helen--I am tempted every day to withdraw
to some idyllic Arcadia with this or that woman. But one has his duty
to perform; you as well as I; and duty is the highest law ...

HELEN. I think I know better by this time, Oscar, what is the highest
law.

GERARDO. Well, what is it? Not your love, I hope? That's what every
woman says! Whatever a woman wants to carry through she calls good, and
if anybody refuses to yield to her then he is bad. That's what our fool
playwrights have done for us. In order to draw full houses they put the
world upside down and call it great-souled if a woman sacrifices her
children and her family