asking him to
dinner, after all these years when weve dined every week as regular as
clockwork. It looks to me as if Gilbey's trying to drop me socially.
Well, why should he do that if he hasnt heard?

MRS KNOX. I wonder! Bobby hasnt been near us either: thats what I cant
make out.

KNOX. Oh, thats nothing. I told him Margaret was down in Cornwall with
her aunt.

MRS KNOX. [reproachfully] Jo! [She takes her handkerchief from the
writing-table and cries a little].

KNOX. Well, I got to tell lies, aint I? You wont. Somebody's got to tell
em.

MRS KNOX. [putting away her handkerchief] It only ends in our not
knowing what to believe. Mrs Gilbey told me Bobby was in Brighton for
the sea air. Theres something queer about that. Gilbey would never
let the boy loose by himself among the temptations of a gay place like
Brighton without his tutor; and I saw the tutor in Kensington High
Street the very day she told me.

KNOX. If the Gilbeys have found out, it's all over between Bobby and
Margaret, and all over between us and them.

MRS KNOX. It's all over between us and everybody. When a girl runs away
from home like that, people know what to think of her and her parents.

KNOX. She had a happy, respectable home--everything--

MRS KNOX. [interrupting him] Theres no use going over it all again, Jo.
If a girl hasnt happiness in herself, she wont be happy anywhere. Youd
better go back to the shop and try to keep your mind off it.

KNOX. [rising restlessly] I cant. I keep fancying everybody knows it and
is sniggering about it. I'm at peace nowhere but here. It's a comfort to
be with you. It's a torment to be with other people.

MRS KNOX. [going to him and drawing her arm through his] There, Jo,
there! I'm sure I'd have you here always if I could. But it cant be.
God's work must go on from day to day, no matter what comes. We must
face our trouble and bear it.

KNOX. [wandering to the window arm in arm with her] Just look at the
people in the street, going up and down as if nothing had happened. It
seems unnatural, as if they all knew and didnt care.

MRS KNOX. If they knew, Jo, thered be a crowd round the house looking up
at us. You shouldnt keep thinking about it.

KNOX. I know I shouldnt. You have your religion, Amelia; and I'm sure
I'm glad it comforts you. But it doesnt come to me that way. Ive worked
hard to get a position and be respectable. Ive turned many a girl out of
the shop for being half an hour late at n