a.

MARY

I'm glad of that, John. I was frightened.
I couldn't bear to tamper with the past.
You don't know what it is, it's what's gone.
But if it really isn't gone at all, if it can be dug
up like that, why you don't know what
mightn't happen! I don't mind the future,
but if the past can come back like that....
O, don't, don't, John. Don't think of it.
It isn't canny. There's the children, John.

JOHN

Yes, yes, that's all right. It's only a little
ornament. I won't use it. And I tell you
I'm content. [Happily] It's no use to me.

MARY

I'm so glad you're content, John. Are you
really? Is there nothing that you'd have had
different? I sometimes thought you'd rather
that Jane had been a boy.

JOHN

Not a bit of it. Well, I may have at the
time, but Arthur's good enough for me.

MARY

I'm so glad. And there's nothing you ever
regret at all?

JOHN

Nothing. And you? Is there nothing you
regret, Mary?

MARY

Me? Oh, no. I still think that sofa would
have been better green, but you would have
it red.

JOHN

Yes, so I would. No, there's nothing I
regret.

MARY

I don't suppose there's many men can say
that.

JOHN

No, I don't suppose they can. They're
not all married to you. I don't suppose
many of them can.

[MARY smiles.]

MARY

I should think that very few could say
that they regretted nothing... very few
in the whole world.

JOHN

Well, I won't say nothing.

MARY

What is it you regret, John?

JOHN

Well, there is one thing.

MARY

And what is that?

JOHN

One thing has rankled a bit.

MARY

Yes, John?

JOHN

O, it's nothing, it's nothing worth
mentioning. But it rankled for years.

MARY

What was it, John?

JOHN

O, it seems silly to mention it. It was
nothing.

MARY

But what?

JOHN

O, well, if you want to know, it was once
when I missed a train. I don't mind missing
a train, but it was the way the porter pushed
me out of the way. He pushed me by the
face. I couldn't hit back, because, well, you
know what lawyers make of it; I might have
been ruined. So it just rankled. It was years
ago before we married.

MARY

Pushed you by the face. Good gracious!

JOHN

Yes, I'd like to have caught that train in
spite of him. I sometimes think of it still.
Silly of me, isn't it?

MARY

What a brute of a man.

JOHN

O, I suppose he was doing his silly duty.
But it rankled.

MARY

He'd no right to do any such thing! He'd
no