)
LADY MARY. We know now that we shall never see England again.
CRICHTON. I am thinking of two people whom neither of us has seen
for a long time--Lady Mary Lasenby, and one Crichton, a butler. (He
says the last word bravely, a word he once loved, though it is the
most horrible of all words to him now.)
LADY MARY. That cold, haughty, insolent girl. Gov., look around you
and forget them both.
CRICHTON. I had nigh forgotten them. He has had a chance, Polly--
that butler--in these two years of becoming a man, and he has tried
to take it. There have been many failures, but there has been some
success, and with it I have let the past drop off me, and turned my
back on it. That butler seems a far-away figure to me now, and not
myself. I hail him, but we scarce know each other. If I am to bring
him back it can only be done by force, for in my soul he is now
abhorrent to me. But if I thought it best for you I'd haul him back;
I swear as an honest man, I would bring him back with all his
obsequious ways and deferential airs, and let you see the man you
call your Gov.
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