(Margaret has just learned from her father-in-law the shattering news that Celia is aware of the “other man” and their dead baby.)

MARGARET PORTER
I went the...the full term, you know, but it was still-born...a year and three months, yesterday. Sometimes when I go in to John George, I can see two of them.

HARRY PORTER
Celia had a miscarriage the year after John was born. We never talk about it now. I sometimes wish there had been two of them...to share.

MARGARET
Share the burden?

HARRY
Oh, maybe...if that's what it is. Do you... Do you still see this man?

MARGARET
No.

HARRY
No. And... And John has no idea?

MARGARET
No! No. Maybe sometime I'll have to tell him. Maybe sometime I won't be able not to.
(anguished)
But now that she knows...

(She sighs.)

HARRY
He's not ready for it, is he?

MARGARET
(shaking her head)
No.

HARRY
Well, I shall just have to stop her, that's all.

MARGARET
How?

HARRY
I don't know. You'll have to leave that to me.

MARGARET
She must hate me.

HARRY
She hates as she loves...much too easily.

MARGARET
You make me feel ashamed, you know. This job you're doing...you did it because of John. In the war, I mean, didn't you?

(Looking down, Harry nods his head slightly.)

MARGARET
What did I do, except indulge myself?

HARRY
(emphatically)
I don't believe it was just that.

MARGARET
I'm not the person that you think I am, you know.

HARRY
I don't believe that, either. Oh, I suppose we're all much more complicated than we appear on the surface. You'd be surprised what goes on under this, uh...rather tatty, middle-aged exterior, you know.

(Margaret smiles.)

HARRY
This, uh... What does she call it? This, uh...yellow-as-a-Chinese exterior.

(They both laugh.)

 

(from "Salute the Happy Morn" by John Finch)