ake the most
difference. Mother, now, she will understand.... You don't believe in
marrying, though, do you?

THE MAN

I certainly do!

THE BOY

But I thought--

THE MAN

You thought because I left one woman and hadn't found another that I
didn't care for women? Others believe that, too, but it isn't so. On the
contrary. You see, I didn't so much leave her as get away from my own
failure. Of course, there is such a thing as the wrong woman. She makes a
man a fraction. The better she is in herself, the less she leaves him to
live by. One twentieth is less than one half. But the right woman! She
multiplies a man....

THE BOY

Oh!

THE MAN

Why, you might have told from my poems how I believe in love.

THE BOY

I don't remember any love poems.

THE MAN

Bless your heart! Every one of them was a love poem. Not the old-fashioned
kind, about fading roses and tender hearts.... I sent that book out as a
cry for the mate. It is charged with the fulness of love. That's why I
could write about trees and storms.

THE BOY

I suppose if I had been older....

THE MAN

It isn't one's age but one's need. _She_ will understand. Look, the sun
has gone round the corner of the house. Is that lunch you have in the
parcel?

THE BOY

Yes.

THE MAN

Would you like to make it a picnic? I'll get something from the house, and
then we can walk to the woods.

THE BOY

I'd love to!

THE MAN

All right, I'll be ready in no time. Come, Rex!

SURVIVAL

_The garden of a home in the suburbs. A man is walking up and down alone
at dusk, occasionally stopping to water a plant, but more often falling
into deep thought, unconscious of his surroundings. About the place there
is an air of newness and prosperity._

_A young woman enters the garden from the lawn next door._

MARGARET

Look here, Roger, you can't keep this up!

ROGER

No, I can't keep this up. Besides, it's going to rain to-morrow.

MARGARET

What do you mean?

ROGER

Watering the plants. Isn't that what you meant?

MARGARET

You aren't watering the plants. I've been watching you for half an hour.
If you only would! But you keep forgetting what you are at.

ROGER

I wish it were only forgetting--it's remembering.

MARGARET

Oh Roger, don't I know? But you mustn't!

ROGER

I suppose not. I suppose not.

MARGARET

I knew all along, and I kept away. How you felt, I mean. I ought to have
come over a week ago. You have