ips pursed as if he were whistling. With a
catch in her throat she takes up Aunt Judy's knitting, and makes
a pretence of going on with it.

NORA. I suppose it didn't seem very long to you.

LARRY [starting]. Eh? What didn't?

NORA. The eighteen years you've been away.

LARRY. Oh, that! No: it seems hardly more than a week. I've been
so busy--had so little time to think.

NORA. I've had nothin else to do but think.

LARRY. That was very bad for you. Why didn't you give it up? Why
did you stay here?

NORA. Because nobody sent for me to go anywhere else, I suppose.
That's why.

LARRY. Yes: one does stick frightfully in the same place, unless
some external force comes and routs one out. [He yawns slightly;
but as she looks up quickly at him, he pulls himself together and
rises with an air of waking up and getting to work cheerfully to
make himself agreeable]. And how have you been all this time?

NORA. Quite well, thank you.

LARRY. That's right. [Suddenly finding that he has nothing else
to say, and being ill at ease in consequence, he strolls about
the room humming a certain tune from Offenbach's Whittington].

NORA [struggling with her tears]. Is that all you have to say to
me, Larry?

LARRY. Well, what is there to say? You see, we know each other so
well.

NORA [a little consoled]. Yes: of course we do. [He does not
reply]. I wonder you came back at all.

LARRY. I couldn't help it. [She looks up affectionately]. Tom
made me. [She looks down again quickly to conceal the effect of
this blow. He whistles another stave; then resumes]. I had a sort
of dread of returning to Ireland. I felt somehow that my luck
would turn if I came back. And now here I am, none the worse.

NORA. Praps it's a little dull for you.

LARRY. No: I haven't exhausted the interest of strolling about
the old places and remembering and romancing about them.

NORA [hopefully]. Oh! You DO remember the places, then?

LARRY. Of course. They have associations.

NORA [not doubting that the associations are with her]. I suppose
so.

LARRY. M'yes. I can remember particular spots where I had long
fits of thinking about the countries I meant to get to when I
escaped from Ireland. America and London, and sometimes Rome and
the east.

NORA [deeply mortified]. Was that all you used to be thinking
about?

LARRY. Well, there was precious little else to think about here,
my dear Nora, except sometimes at sunset, when one got maudlin
an