Margery! [_MARGERY drops the cushion and turns._] Thank you! God bless you!
Of course I haven't told her! [_Slight pause._] May I go?
Not yet. Margery, can you ever forgive me?
Not as I do you, Margery. You don't know what you did for me that day. If you had rounded on me, I should not have cared--but to be silent--to do nothing--to forgive me!
Then you refuse me? [_MARGERY is silent--he turns away._] Well, I don't deserve you.
Oh, don't think I mean that! Do you suppose you are the only man that's ever made love to me? It's a man's business to make love; and it's a woman's business to stop him--when he makes love too hard. But if we can't be lovers, Mr. Gerald, we can be friends.
It's got past friendship with me, Margery. Since I came back to town, everything's changed. My pursuits all feel so empty and so meaningless; every woman I meet seems different from what she was: and oh, how different from _you!_
Gentry _are_ different. We're different breeds. That's why we can't be lovers.
Hush! Mr. Gerald, that's impossible. My lady will be asking for me. Let me go!
Not till I've told you how I love you, Margery. Seeing you again is breathing the pure air. It seems a younger and a sweeter world, now you have come again. Nothing else matters. All my life beside appears a folly and a waste of time. My real life was lived with you down yonder, out in the fields, and rambling through the woods and listening to the music of the weir. The life that we began together so pleasantly, cannot we live together to the end? I was quite honest when I said I loved you. And couldn't you love _me,_--just a little bit?
Please, Mr. Gerald, don't! It makes it very hard for me----
Oh, what's the use of asking? You only want to make me tell a lie.
That is what made it easy to forgive you. Now let me go.
Not till you've said that you will be my wife.
If you will let me call you "Mr. Gerald."
_Re-enter L., just as MARGERY is withdrawing from GERALD'S arms, stands thunderstruck. Exit MARGERY, L._
All right, you call it? Look here, you young cub! None of your higher morality with Margery!
I tell you, it's all right. Margery's going to be your niece--my wife.
Margery, your wife! [_Slight pause._] You're a damned lucky dog!