KATHERINE. Yes. The country's our country! Oh! Stephen, think
what it'll be like for me--with Hubert and the other boys out there.
And poor Helen, and Father! I beg you not to make this speech.

MORE. Kit! This isn't fair. Do you want me to feel myself a cur?

KATHERINE. [Breathless] I--I--almost feel you'll be a cur to do it
[She looks at him, frightened by her own words. Then, as the footman
HENRY has come in to clear the table--very low] I ask you not!

[He does not answer, and she goes out.]

MORE [To the servant] Later, please, Henry, later!

The servant retires. MORE still stands looking down at the
dining-table; then putting his hand to his throat, as if to free
it from the grip of his collar, he pours out a glass of water,
and drinks it of. In the street, outside the bay window, two
street musicians, a harp and a violin, have taken up their
stand, and after some twangs and scrapes, break into music.
MORE goes towards the sound, and draws aside one curtain. After
a moment, he returns to the table, and takes up the notes of the
speech. He is in an agony of indecision.

MORE. A cur!

He seems about to tear his notes across. Then, changing his
mind, turns them over and over, muttering. His voice gradually
grows louder, till he is declaiming to the empty room the
peroration of his speech.

MORE. . . . We have arrogated to our land the title Champion of
Freedom, Foe of Oppression. Is that indeed a bygone glory? Is it
not worth some sacrifice of our pettier dignity, to avoid laying
another stone upon its grave; to avoid placing before the searchlight
eyes of History the spectacle of yet one more piece of national
cynicism? We are about to force our will and our dominion on a race
that has always been free, that loves its country, and its
independence, as much as ever we love ours. I cannot sit silent
to-night and see this begin. As we are tender of our own land, so we
should be of the lands of others. I love my country. It is because
I love my country that I raise my voice. Warlike in spirit these
people may be--but they have no chance against ourselves. And war on
such, however agreeable to the blind moment, is odious to the future.
The great heart of mankind ever beats in sense and sympathy with the
weaker. It is against this great heart of mankind that we are going.
In the name of Justice and Civilizatio