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Four Short Plays by John Galsworthy
page 64 of 75 (85%)
I mustn't say that here--hardly!

WIFE. [To herself and the moonlight] Orpheus with his lute!

PROF. Most people think a lute is a sort of flute. [Yawning
heavily] My dear, if you're not going to sing again, d'you mind
sitting down? I want to concentrate.

WIFE. I'm going out.

PROF. Mind the dew!

WIFE. The Christian virtues and the dew.

PROF. [With a little dry laugh] Not bad! Not bad! The Christian
virtues and the dew. [His hand takes up his pen, his face droops
over his paper, while his wife looks at him with a very strange face]
"How far we can trace the modern resurgence against the Christian
virtues to the symbolic figures of Orpheus, Pan, Apollo, and Bacchus
might be difficult to estimate, but----"

[During those words his WIFE has passed through the window into
the moonlight, and her voice rises, singing as she goes:
"Orpheus with his lute, with his lute made trees . . ."]

PROF. [Suddenly aware of something] She'll get her throat bad.
[He is silent as the voice swells in the distance] Sounds queer at
night-H'm! [He is silent--Yawning. The voice dies away. Suddenly
his head nods; he fights his drowsiness; writes a word or two, nods
again, and in twenty seconds is asleep.]
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