STRANGER. It maybe.

LADY. You must telegraph again.

STRANGER. I ought to, I know. But I can't stir from here. I no
longer believe that what I do can succeed. Someone's paralysed me.

LADY. And me! We decided never to speak of the past and yet we drag
it with us. Look at this carpet. Those flowers seem to form. ...

STRANGER. Him! It's him. He's everywhere. How many hundred times
has he. ... Yet I see someone else in the pattern of the table
cloth. No, it's an illusion! Any moment now I'll hear my funeral
march--then everything will be complete. (Listening.) There!

LADY. I hear nothing.

STRANGER. Am I ... am I. ...

LADY. Shall we go home?

STRANGER. The last place. The worst of all! To arrive like an
adventurer, a beggar. Impossible!

LADY. Yes, I know, but. ... No, it would be too much. To bring
shame, disgrace and sorrow to the old people, and to see you
humiliated, and you me! We could never respect one another again.

STRANGER. It would be worse than death. Yet I feel it's inevitable,
and I begin to long for it, to get it over quickly, if it must be.