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LOUISE

Do you love her?

MAX

I don't know how I feel. I'm grateful I still feel anything. I know I'm obsessed with her.

LOUISE

(stands)

Then say it! Don't keep telling me you're obsessed, you're infatuated – say you're in love with her!

MAX

I'm in love with her.

LOUISE

(erupts)

Then get out, go to a hotel, go anywhere you want, go live with her, but don't come back! Because after twenty-five years of building a home and raising a family and all the senseless pain we've inflicted on each other, I'll be damned if I'll just stand here and let you tell me you love somebody else!

(now it's she striding around, weeping, a caged lioness)

Because this isn't just some convention weekend with your secretary, is it? Or some broad you picked up after three belts of booze. This is your great winter romance, isn't it?, your last roar of passion before you sink into your emeritus years. Is that what's left for me? Is that my share? She gets the great winter passion, and I get the dotage? Am I supposed to sit at home knitting and purling till you slink back like a penitent drunk? I'm your wife, damn it! If you can't work up a winter passion for me, then the least I require is respect and allegiance! I'm hurt! Don't you understand that? I'm hurt badly!

She stares, her cheeks streaked with tears, at Max standing at the terrace glass door, staring blindly out, his own eyes wet and welling. After a moment, he turns and regards his anguished wife.

LOUISE

Say something, for God's sake.

MAX

I've got nothing to say.

He enfolds her; she sobs on his chest.

LOUISE

(after a moment)

Are you that deeply involved with her?