_Phil._ [_Aside._] I am not I, if I do not let him see--
_De la Cot._ Are these compliments intended for me, sir?
_Phil._ Pardon me; I am carried away by my anger.
_Phil._ That insolent fellow, Monsieur Riccardo.
_De la Cot._ And has he refused his consent to the marriage?
_Phil._ [_Aside._] I am sorry I must bring this new trouble on the poor Lieutenant.
_De la Cot._ [_Aside._] Heaven be praised! fortune at last aids me.
_Phil._ My friend, never give way to resentment--to impatience of temper.
_De la Cot._ Tell me the truth; does he refuse his daughter?
_Phil._ A man in this world ought to be prepared for any event.
_De la Cot._ I am impatient to hear the truth.
_Phil._ [_Aside._] Ah! if I tell him, he will drop down dead.
_De la Cot._ [_Aside._] This suspense is intolerable.
_De la Cot._ By your leave, sir. [_Going._]
_Phil._ Stay a moment.--[_Aside._] If he goes, there is danger he will destroy himself from despair.
_De la Cot._ Why not tell me at once what he said to you?
_Phil._ Control yourself. Do not give way to despair, because an avaricious, presumptuous, ignorant father refuses to marry his daughter respectably. There is a way to manage it in spite of him.
_De la Cot._ No, sir; when the father refuses, it is not proper for me to persist.
_De la Cot._ To go far away, and to sacrifice my love to honour, duty, and universal quiet.
_Phil._ And have you the heart to abandon a girl who loves you?--to leave her a prey to despair?--soon to receive the sad intelligence of her illness, perhaps of her death!
_De la Cot._ Ah, Monsieur Philibert, your words will kill me! if you knew their force, you would be cautious how you used them.
_Phil._ My words will conduct you to joy, to peace, to happiness.
_De la Cot._ Ah, no! rather to sorrow and destruction.
_Phil._ It is strange that a man of spirit like you should be so easily discouraged.
_De la Cot._ If you knew my case, you would not talk so.
_Phil._ I know it perfectly, but do not consider it desperate. The girl loves you--you love her passionately. This will not be the first marriage between young persons that has taken place without the consent of parents.
_De la Cot._ Do you approve of my marrying the daughter without the consent of the father?