Richard
[Contemptuously.] What is that to me? Did I vote it?
Robert
But if you love . . . What else is it?
Richard
[Hesitatingly.] To wish her well.
Robert
[Warmly.] But the passion which burns us night and day to possess her. You feel it as I do. And it is not what you said now.
Richard
Have you . . .? [He stops for an instant.] Have you the luminous certitude that yours is the brain in contact with which she must think and understand and that yours is the body in contact with which her body must feel? Have you this certitude in yourself?
Robert
Have you?
Richard
[Moved.] Once I had it, Robert: a certitude as luminous as that of my own existence—or an illusion as luminous.
Robert
[Cautiously.] And now?
Richard
If you had it and I could feel that you had it—even now . . .
Robert
What would you do?
