There's to be no public scandal.
FRANCES. Why has Lord Horsham thrown you over then ... or hasn't that
anything to do with it?
TREBELL. It has to do with it.
FRANCES. [_Lifting her voice; some tone returning to it._] Unconsciously ...
I've known for years that this sort of thing might happen to you.
TREBELL. Why?
FRANCES. Power over men and women and contempt for them! Do you think they
don't take their revenge sooner or later?
TREBELL. Much good may it do them!
FRANCES. Human nature turns against you ... by instinct ... in self-defence.
TREBELL. And my own human-nature!
FRANCES. [_Shocked into great pity, by his half articulate pain._] Yes ...
you must have loved her, Henry ... in some odd way. I'm sorry for you both.
TREBELL. I'm hating her now ... as a man can only hate his own silliest
vices.
FRANCES. [_Flashing into defence._] That's wrong of you. If you thought of
her only as a pretty little fool.... Bearing your child ... all her womanly
life belonged to you ... and for that time there was no other sort of life
in her. So she became what you thought her.
TREBELL. That's not true.
FRANCES. It's true enough ... it's true of men towards women. You can't
think of them through generations as one thing and then suddenly find them
another.
TREBELL. [_Hammering at his fixed idea._] She should have brought that child
into the world.
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