ere possible. [With an outburst.] For this--I cannot
bear this for ever! Oh, can we not think of something that will bring
its forgetfulness!

ALLMERS. [Shakes his head.] What could that be?

RITA. Could we not see what travelling would do--far away from here?

ALLMERS. From home? When you know you are never really well anywhere but
here.

RITA. Well, then, let us have crowds of people about us! Keep open
house! Plunge into something that can deaden and dull our thoughts!

ALLMERS. Such it life would be impossible for me.--No,--rather than
that, I would try to take up my work again.

RITA. [Bitingly.] Your work--the work that has always stood like a dead
wall between us!

ALLMERS. [Slowly, looking fixedly at her.] There must always be a dead
wall between us two, from this time forth.

RITA. Why must there--?

ALLMERS. Who knows but that a child's great, open eyes are watching us
day and night.

RITA. [Softly, shuddering.] Alfred--how terrible to think of!

ALLMERS. Our love has been like a consuming fire. Now it must be
quenched--

RITA. [With a movement towards him.] Quenched!

ALLMERS. [Hardly.] It is quenched--in one of us.

RITA. [As if petrified.] And you dare say that to me!

ALLMERS. [More gently.] It is dead, Rita. But in what I now feel for
you--in our common guilt and need of atonement--I seem to foresee a sort
of resurrection--

RITA. [Vehemently.] I don't care a bit about any resurrection!

ALLMERS. Rita!

RITA. I am a warm-blooded being! I don't go drowsing about--with fishes'
blood in my veins. [Wringing her hands.] And now to be imprisoned for
life--in anguish and remorse! Imprisoned with one who is no longer mine,
mine, mine!

ALLMERS. It must have ended so, sometime, Rita.

RITA. Must have ended so! The love that in the beginning rushed forth so
eagerly to meet with love!

ALLMERS. My love did not rush forth to you in the beginning.

RITA. What did you feel for me, first of all?

ALLMERS. Dread.

RITA. That I can understand. How was it, then, that I won you after all?

ALLMERS. [In a low voice.] You were so entrancingly beautiful, Rita.

RITA. [Looks searchingly at him.] Then that was the only reason? Say it,
Alfred! The only reason?

ALLMERS. [Conquering himself.] No, there was another as well.

RITA. [With an outburst.] I can guess what that was! It was "my gold,
and my green forests," as you call it. Was it not so, Alfred?

ALLMERS. Yes.

RITA. [Looks at him wi