_]
D'you think it was Horsham and his little committee persuaded O'Connell?
WEDGECROFT. On the contrary.
TREBELL. So you need not have let them into the secret?
WEDGECROFT. No.
TREBELL. Think of that.
_He almost laughs; but_ WEDGECROFT _goes on quite innocently._
WEDGECROFT. Yes ... I'm sorry.
TREBELL. Upsetting their moral digestion for nothing.
WEDGECROFT. But when O'Connell wouldn't listen to us we had to rope in the
important people.
TREBELL. With their united wisdom. [_Then he breaks away again into great
bitterness._] No ... what do they make of this woman's death? I saw them in
that room, Gilbert, like men seen through the wrong end of a telescope.
D'you think if the little affair with Nature ... her offence and mine
against the conveniences of civilization ... had ended in my death too ...
then they'd have stopped to wonder at the misuse and waste of the only force
there is in the world ... come to think of it, there is no other ... than
this desire for expression ... in words ... or through children. Would they
have thought of that and stopped whispering about the scandal?
_Through this_ WEDGECROFT _has watched him very gravely._
WEDGECROFT. Trebell ... if the inquest to-morrow had put you out of action
...
TREBELL. Should I have grown a beard and travelled abroad and after ten
years timidly tried to climb my way back into politics? When public opinion
takes its heel from your face it keeps it for your finger-tips.
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