.

SCHWARZ. =Eve?=

SCHOEN. I called her Mignon.

SCHWARZ. I thought her name was Nellie?

SCHOEN. Dr. Goll called her so.

SCHWARZ. I called her Eve--

SCHOEN. What her real name is I don't know.

SCHWARZ. (Absently.) Perhaps she knows.

SCHOEN. With a father like hers, she is, with all her faults, a miracle.
I don't understand you--

SCHWARZ. He died in a madhouse--?

SCHOEN. He was here just now!

SCHWARZ. Who was here?

SCHOEN. Her father.

SCHWARZ. Here--in my house?

SCHOEN. He squeezed by me as I came in. And there are the two glasses
still.

SCHWARZ. She says he died in the madhouse.

SCHOEN. Let her feel she's in authority--! She craves nothing but the
compulsion to unconditional obedience. With Dr. Goll she was in heaven,
and with him there was no joking.

SCHWARZ. (Shaking his head.) She said she had never loved--

SCHOEN. But you, make a beginning with yourself. Pull yourself together!

SCHWARZ. She has sworn--!

SCHOEN. You can't demand a sense of duty in her before you know your own
task.

SCHWARZ. By her mother's grave!

SCHOEN. She never knew her mother, let alone the grave. Her mother
hasn't got a grave.

SCHWARZ. I don't fit in society. (He is in desperation.)

SCHOEN. What's the matter?

SCHWARZ. Pain--horrible pain!

SCHOEN. (Gets up, steps back; after a pause.) Guard her for yourself:
she's yours. The moment is decisive. To-morrow she may be lost to you.

SCHWARZ. (Pointing to his breast.) Here, here.

SCHOEN. You have married half-- (Reflecting.) She is lost to you if you
let this moment slip!

SCHWARZ. If I could weep! Oh, if I could cry out!

SCHOEN. (With a hand on his shoulder.) You're suffering--

SCHWARZ. (Getting up, apparently quiet.) You are right, quite right.

SCHOEN. (Gripping his hand.) Where are you going?

SCHWARZ. To speak with her.

SCHOEN. Right! (Accompanies him to the door, left. Coming back.) That
was tough work. (After a pause, looking right.) He had taken her into
the studio before though? (A fearful groan, left. He hurries to the
door and finds it locked.) Open! Open the door!

LULU. (Stepping thru the hangings, right.) What's--

SCHOEN. Open it!

LULU. (Comes down the steps.) That is horrible.

SCHOEN. Have you an ax in the kitchen?

LULU. He'll open it right off--

SCHOEN. I can't kick it down.

LULU. When he's had his cry out.

SCHOEN. (Kicking the door.) Open! (To Lulu.) Bring me an ax.

LULU. Send for the docto