Robert laughs because he doesn’t care. It is all a play to Robert. But I care dreadfully. It matters to me. I want to kill them for their stupidity.

ANNE. Richard, you must go back. They can do nothing without you.

RICHARD. (_with malicious satisfaction_). That is why I came out. They think they are lords of England until it comes to signing a paper. For that they need me. (_With a sudden weariness_) And you have no idea how difficult it is sometimes not to sign, when my uncle Gloucester has been glowering, and my uncle Lancaster has been arguing, and my uncle York has been tactful and silly. My grandfather was distressingly prolific. If only I could trust them, Anne! If only I could trust everyone as I trusted when I was small. That was happiness: to take men as you found them, with no little flame of suspicion always shooting up in your mind to spoil things. I sometimes wish I could be—oh, I don’t know; nobody in particular; just one of the people. I talked to the people once, in the rebellion; talked for hours to them; and they seemed quite happy in spite of being so poor. But how they stank, Anne! How they stank! It is an insult to God that a human being should smell like that.

ANNE. And that they should be hungry. Think of it, Richard. Not enough to eat. It is difficult to imagine, isn’t it?

RICHARD. Even they are not to be trusted. I gave them all they asked for—gave it willingly because I was sorry for them—and they killed old Sudbury behind my back. Poor harmless old Sudbury. You never knew him. He was a kind old man.

ANNE. Where thousands of men are brought together there will always be knaves. It was not the poor starving cottars who killed Sudbury. Don’t be bitter, Richard.