vou have ever had.
MARGARET: To think that I tolerated such nonsense for a
year!
GILBERT: Tolerated? You revellod in it. Don't be un-
grateful; I'm not. The despicable way you Inhaved in the
end cannot spoil the memory of it. I will say more; it was
a part of it.
MARGARET: You don't say!
GILBERT: I still owe you this confession: Just at the time
you began to turn from me, as you became housesick for the
stables, la nostalgie de l'ecurie - just then, as far as
any deeper feelings were concerned, I was through with you.
It is characteristic of you that you did'nt notice it in the
least. I was through with you - yes, I simply did not need
you any more. All that you could give, you had given.
Your mission was donnfilled, and you knew it in the 18pths
of your soul - you knew it unconsciously.
MARGARET: I beg of you, do not be so bitter.
GILBERT: (Undaunted) Your time was up; our intimacy had
run its course... I am not sorry to have lived you.
MARGARET: But I?
GILBERT: It is in these little remarks that a connoisseur
discerns the fundamental difference between the artist
and the dilectant. For you,jearet, ou asseciation is