Oh, don't trouble. Good night--good night. (Exeunt.)
OLIVER. Oh, God, what a world to live in!
ANABEL. I rather liked him. What is he?
OLIVER. Checkweighman--local secretary for the Miner's Federation--
plays the violin well, although he was a collier, and it spoilt his
hands. They're a musical family.
ANABEL. But isn't he rather nice?
OLIVER. I don't like him. But I confess he's a study. He's the
modern Judas.
ANABEL. Don't you think he likes Gerald?
OLIVER. I'm sure he does. The way he suns himself here--like a cat
purring in his luxuriation.
ANABEL. Yes--I don't mind it. It shows a certain sensitiveness and
a certain taste.
OLIVER. Yes, he has both--touch of the artist, as Mrs. Barlow says.
He loves refinement, culture, breeding, all those things--loves them--
and a presence, a fine free manner.
ANABEL. But that is nice in him.
OLIVER. Quite. But what he loves, and what he admires, and what he
aspires to, he MUST betray. It's his fatality. He lives for the
moment when he can kiss Gerald in the Garden of Olives, or wherever
it was.
ANABEL. But Gerald shouldn't be kissed.
OLIVER. That's what I say.
ANABEL. And that's what his mother means as well, I suppose.
(Enter GERALD.)
GERALD. Well--you've heard the voice of the people.
ANABEL. He isn't the people.
GERALD. I think he is, myself--the epitome.
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