trouble, I seem to be the last person you take
into your confidence.

ASHER. I don't worry you with business matters.

AUGUSTA. Because you do not regard me as your intellectual equal.

ASHER. A woman has her sphere. You have always filled it admirably.

AUGUSTA. "Adorn" is the word, I believe.

ASHER. To hear you talk, one would think you'd been contaminated by
Jonathan. You, of all people!

AUGUSTA. There seems to be no place for a woman like me in these days,
--I don't recognize the world I'm living in.

ASHER. You didn't sleep a wink last night, thinking of George.

AUGUSTA. I've given up all hope of ever seeing him again alive.

(Enter DR. JONATHAN, lower right. His calmness is in contrast to
the storm, and to the mental states of ASHER and AUGUSTA.)

Why, Jonathan, what are you doing out in this storm?

DR. JONATHAN. I came to see you, Augusta.

AUGUSTA (knitting, trying to hide her perturbation at his appearance).
Did you? You might have waited until the worst was over. You still have
to be careful of your health, you know.

DR. JONATHAN (sitting down). There are other things more important than
my health. No later news about George, I suppose.

ASHER. Yes. I got another telegram early this morning saying that he
is on his way home on a transport.

DR. JONATHAN. On his way home!

ASHER. If he lives to arrive. I'll show you the wire. Apparently they
can't make anything out of his condition, but think it's shell shock.
This storm has been raging along the coast ever since nine o'clock, the
wires are down, but I did manage to telephone to New York and get hold of
Frye, the shell-shock specialist. In case George should land today,
he'll meet him.

DR. JONATHAN. Frye is a good man.

ASHER. George is hit by a shell and almost killed nearly a month ago,
and not a word do I hear of it until I get that message in your house
yesterday! Then comes this other telegram this morning. What's to be
said about a government capable of such inefficiency? Of course the
chances of his landing today are small, but I can't leave for New York
until tonight because that same government sends a labour investigator
here to pry into my affairs, and make a preliminary report. They're
going to decide whether or not I shall keep my property or hand it over
to them! And whom do they send? Not a business man, who's had practical
experience with labour, but a professor out of some university,--a
theorist!

DR. JONAT