Oberville. I've shrunk then?
Isabel. You couldn't have grown bigger. Oh, I'm serious now; you needn't prepare a smile. For years you were the tallest object on my horizon. I used to climb to the thought of you, as people who live in a flat country mount the church steeple for a view. It's wonderful how much I used to see from there! And the air was so strong and pure!
Oberville. And now?
Isabel. Now I can fancy how delightful it must be to sit next to you at dinner.
Oberville. You're unmerciful. Have I said anything to offend you?
Isabel. Of course not. How absurd!
Oberville. I lost my head a little--I forgot how long it is since we have met. When I saw you I forgot everything except what you had once been to me. (She is silent.) I thought you too generous to resent that. Perhaps I have overtaxed your generosity. (. pause.) Shall I confess it? When I first saw you I thought for a moment that you had remembered--as I had. You see I can only excuse myself by saying something inexcusable.
Isabel (deliberately). Not inexcusable.
Oberville. Not--?
Isabel. I had remembered.
Oberville. Isabel!
Isabel. But now--
Oberville. Ah, give me a moment before you unsay it!
Isabel. I don't mean to unsay it. There's no use in repealing an obsolete law. That's the pity of it! You say you lost me ten years ago. (. pause.) I never lost you till now.
Oberville. Now?
Isabel. Only this morning you were my supreme court of justice; there was no appeal from your verdict. Not an hour ago you decided a case for me--against myself! And now--. And the worst of it is that it's not because you've changed. How do I know if you've changed? You haven't said a hundred words to me. You haven't been an hour in the room. And the years must have enriched you--I daresay you've doubled your capital. You've been in the thick of life, and the metal you're made of brightens with use. Success on some men looks like a borrowed coat; it sits on you as though it had been made to order. I see all this; I know it; but I don't feel it. I don't feel anything... anywhere... I'm numb. (. pause.) Don't laugh, but I really don't think I should know now if you came into the room--unless I actually saw you. (They are both silent.)
Oberville (at length). Then, to put the most merciful interpretation upon your epigrams, your feeling for me was made out of poorer stuff than mine for you.
Isabel. Perhaps it has had harder wear.
Oberville. Or been less cared for?
Isabel. If one has only one cloak one must wear it in all weathers.
Oberville. Unless it is so beautiful and precious that one prefers to go cold and keep it under lock and key.
Isabel. In the cedar-chest of indifference--the key of which is usually lost.
Oberville. Ah, Isabel, you're too pat! How much I preferred your hesitations.
Isabel. My hesitations? That reminds me how much your coming has simplified things. I feel as if I'd had an auction sale of fallacies.
Oberville. You speak in enigmas, and I have a notion that your riddles are the reverse of the sphinx's--more dangerous to guess than to give up. And yet I used to find your thoughts such good reading.
Isabel. One cares so little for the style in which one's praises are written.
Oberville. You've been praising me for the last ten minutes and I find your style detestable. I would rather have you find fault with me like a friend than approve me like a dilettante.
Isabel. A dilettante. The very word I wanted!
Oberville. I am proud to have enriched so full a vocabulary. But I am still waiting for the word I want. (He grows serious.) Isabel, look in your heart--give me the first word you find there. You've no idea how much a beggar can buy with a penny!
