oor coat. She speaks coldly without
looking up.

KATHERINE. You rang!

MORE. For them to shut this room up.

KATHERINE. The servants have gone out. They're afraid of the house
being set on fire.

MORE. I see.

KATHERINE. They have not your ideals to sustain them. [MORE winces]
I am going with Helen and Olive to Father's.

MORE. [Trying to take in the exact sense of her words] Good! You
prefer that to an hotel? [KATHERINE nods. Gently] Will you let me
say, Kit, how terribly I feel for you--Hubert's----

KATHERINE. Don't. I ought to have made what I meant plainer. I am
not coming back.

MORE. Not? Not while the house----

KATHERINE. Not--at all.

MORE. Kit!

KATHERINE. I warned you from the first. You've gone too far!

MORE. [Terribly moved] Do you understand what this means? After
ten years--and all--our love!

KATHERINE. Was it love? How could you ever have loved one so
unheroic as myself!

MORE. This is madness, Kit--Kit!

KATHERINE. Last night I was ready. You couldn't. If you couldn't
then, you never can. You are very exalted, Stephen. I don't like
living--I won't live, with one whose equal I am not. This has been
coming ever since you made that speech. I told you that night what
the end would be.

MORE. [Trying to put his arms round her] Don't be so terribly
cruel!

KATHERINE. No! Let's have the truth! People so wide apart don't
love! Let me go!

MORE. In God's name, how can I help the difference in our faiths?

KATHERINE. Last night you used the word--bargain. Quite right. I
meant to buy you. I meant to kill your faith. You showed me what I
was doing. I don't like to be shown up as a driver of bargains,
Stephen.

MORE. God knows--I never meant----

KATHERINE. If I'm not yours in spirit--I don't choose to be your--
mistress.

MORE, as if lashed by a whip, has thrown up his hands in an
attitude of defence.

KATHERINE. Yes, that's cruel! It shows the heights you live on. I
won't drag you down.

MORE. For God's sake, put your pride away, and see! I'm fighting
for the faith that's in me. What else can a man do? What else? Ah!
Kit! Do see!

KATHERINE. I'm strangled here! Doing nothing--sitting silent--when
my brothers are fighting, and being killed. I shall try to go out
nursing. Helen will come with me. I have my faith, too; my poor
common love of country. I can't stay here with you. I spent last
nigh