all the good common things: a good house, good food, warmth. He's a delicate little thing now, but he'll grow strong like other children. . . . Give me what I ask, and in return I'll give you-him. On one condition. I'm to stay on here. I won't trouble you-you needn't speak to me or see me unless you want to. For ten years he's to be absolutely mine, to do what I like with. You mustn't interfere—you mustn't tell him to do things or frighten him. He's mine for ten years more.
Rutherford. And after that?
Mary. He'll be yours.
Rutherford. To train up. For Rutherfords'?
Mary. Yes.
Rutherford. After all? After Dick, that I've bullied till he's a fool? John, that's wished me dead?
Mary. In ten years you'll be an old man; you won't be able to make people afraid of you any more.
When I saw the masterly presentation of the play on the stage, Mary's bargain looked unreal and incongruous. It seemed impossible to me that a mother who really loves her child should want it to be in any way connected with the Rutherford's. But after repeatedly rereading the play, I was convinced by Mary's simple statement: " In ten years you'll be an old man; you won't be able to make people afraid of you any more." Most deeply true. The Rutherfords are bound by time, by the eternal forces of change. Their influence on human life is indeed terrible. Not
