midly: "Lady Aline, I love you: I am a
simple, unsophisticated person; will you marry me?" You would have
answered, "Yes, Harrison, I will."

ALINE. It is a mercy to have escaped marrying a man with such a Christian
name as Harrison.

CROCKSTEAD. It has been in the family for generations, you know; but it is
a strange thing that I am always called Harrison, and that no one ever
adopts the diminutive.

ALINE. That does not surprise me: we have no pet name for the East wind.

CROCKSTEAD. The possession of millions, you see, Lady Aline, puts you into
eternal quarantine. It is a kind of yellow fever, with the difference that
people are perpetually anxious to catch your complaint. But we digress. To
return to the question of our marriage--

ALINE. I beg your pardon.

CROCKSTEAD. I presume that it is--arranged?

ALINE. [_Haughtily._] Mr. Crockstead, let me remind you that frankness has
its limits: exceeding these, it is apt to degenerate into impertinence.
Be good enough to conduct me to the ball-room.

[_She moves to the door._

CROCKSTEAD. You have five sisters, I believe, Lady Aline? [ALINE _stops
short._] All younger than yourself, all marriageable, and all unmarried?

[ALINE _hangs her head and is silent._

CROCKSTEAD. Your father--

ALINE. [_Fiercely._] Not a word of my father!

CROCKSTEAD. Your father is a gentleman. The breed is rare, and very fine
when you get it. But he is exceedingly poor. People marry for money
nowadays; and your mother will be very unhappy if this marriage of ours
falls through.

ALINE. [_Moving a step towards him._] Is it to oblige my mother, then,
that you desire to marry me?

CROCKSTEAD. Well, no. But you see I must marry some one, in mere
self-defence; and honestly, I think you will do at least as well as any
one else. [ALINE _bursts out laughing._] That strikes you as funny?

ALINE. If you had the least grain of chivalrous feeling, you would realise
that the man who could speak to a woman as you have spoken to me--

[_She pauses._

CROCKSTEAD. Yes?

ALINE. I leave you to finish the sentence.

CROCKSTEAD. Thank you. I will finish it my own way. I will say that when a
woman deliberately tries to wring an offer of marriage from a man whom
she does not love, she deserves to be spoken to as I have spoken to you,
Lady Aline.

ALINE. [_Scornfully._] Love! What has love to do with marriage?

CROCKSTEAD. That remark rings hollow. You have been good enough to