{Knox}

(_Springing at him._) You cur!

{Margaret}

(_Interposing._) No; don't. His heart.

{Chalmers}

(_Mimicking Margaret._) No dramatics, please.

{Margaret}

(_Plaintively, looking from one man to the other._) Men are so
strangely and wonderfully made. What am I to do with the pair of
you? Why won't you reason together like rational human beings?

{Chalmers}

(_Bitterly gay, rising to his feet._) Yes; let us come and reason
together. Be rational. Sit down and talk it over like civilized
humans. This is not the stone age. Be reassured, Mr. Knox. I
won't brain you. Margaret--

(_Indicating chair,_) Sit down. Mr. Knox--

(_Indicating chair._) Sit down.

(_All three seat themselves, in a triangle._) Behold the
problem--the ever ancient and ever young triangle of the
playwright and the short story writer--two men and a woman.

{Knox}

True, and yet not true. The triangle is incomplete. Only one of
the two men loves the woman.

{Chalmers}

Yes?

{Knox}

And I am that man.

{Chalmers}

I fancy you're right.

(_Nodding his head._) But how about the woman?

{Margaret}

She loves one of the two men.

{Knox}

And what are you going to do about it?

{Chalmers}

(_Judicially._) She has not yet indicated the man.

(_Margaret is about to indicate Knox._) Be careful, Madge. Remember
who is Tommy's father.

{Margaret}

Tom, honestly, remembering what the last years have been can you
imagine that I love you?

{Chalmers}

I'm afraid I've not--er--not flamed sufficiently.

{Margaret}

You have possibly spoken nearer the truth than you dreamed. I
married you, Tom, hoping great things of you. I hoped you would
be a power for good--

{Chalmers}

Politics again. When will women learn they must leave politics
alone?

{Margaret}

And also, I hoped for love. I knew you didn't love me when we
married, but I hoped for it to come.

{Chalmers}

And--er--may I be permitted to ask if you loved me?

{Margaret}

No; but I hoped that, too, would come.

{Chalmers}

It was, then, all a mistake.

{Margaret}

Yes; yours, and mine, and my father's.

{Knox}

We have sat down to reason this out, and we get nowhere. Margaret
and I love each other. Your triangle breaks.

{Chalmers}

It isn't a triangle after all. You forget Tommy.

{Knox} (_Petulantly._) Make it four-sided, then, but let us come to
some conclusion.

{Chalmers} (_Reflecting._) Ah, it is more than that. There