MR. TRAVERS. And are you content with this marriage?

MARION. Quite.

[He shakes his head gravely at her.]

MRS. TRAVERS. Aren't you coming, Marion?

MARION. No. I'm feeling tired.

[MR. and MRS. TRAVERS go out.]

DAN. Are you going to leave Harry alone with two pairs of lovers?

MARION [with a laugh]. Yes--let him see how ridiculous they look. I
hate the night--it follows you and asks questions. Shut it out. Come
and talk to me. Amuse me.

DAN. What shall I talk to you about?

MARION. Oh, tell me all the news. What is the world doing? Who has run
away with whose wife? Who has been swindling whom? Which philanthropist
has been robbing the poor? What saint has been discovered sinning? What
is the latest scandal? Who has been found out? and what is it they have
been doing? and what is everybody saying about it?

DAN. Would it amuse you?

MARION [she sits by the piano, softly touching the keys, idly recalling
many memories]. What should it do? Make me weep? Should not one be
glad to know one's friends better?

DAN. I wish you wouldn't be clever. Everyone one meets is clever
nowadays. It came in when the sun-flower went out. I preferred the sun-
flower; it was more amusing.

MARION. And stupid people, I suppose, will come in when the clever
people go out. I prefer the clever. They have better manners. You're
exceedingly disagreeable. [She leaves the piano, and, throwing herself
upon the couch, takes up a book.]

DAN. I know I am. The night has been with me also. It follows one and
asks questions.

MARION. What questions has it been asking you?

DAN. Many--and so many of them have no answer. Why am I a useless,
drifting log upon the world's tide? Why have all the young men passed
me? Why am I, at thirty-nine, let us say, with brain, with power, with
strength--nobody thinks I am worth anything, but I am--I know it. I
might have been an able editor, devoting every morning from ten till
three to arranging the affairs of the Universe, or a popular politician,
trying to understand what I was talking about, and to believe it. And
what am I? A newspaper reporter, at three-ha'pence a line--I beg their
pardon, its occasionally twopence.

MARION. Does it matter?

DAN. Does it matter! Does it matter whether a Union Jack or a Tricolor
floats over the turrets of Badajoz? yet we pour our blood into its
ditches to decide the argument. Does it matter whether one star mor