Don't judge me by a hasty remark. Besides, I had an alternative to suggest.
I--I wanted to tell you in a different way, but you won't let me. I want you as my wife.
It may appear sudden and cold-blooded--but your cab is coming.
You've taken my breath away. How exciting it is when it does come. I really don't know what to say. I know there is a usual thing. It isn't "To what am I indebted for this honour," is it?
I don't know. I've never asked a girl before.
That's where we would start with a big advantage. We'd have all the pleasure of finding each other out. Anyway, you are not displeased.
Oh no; either way I score. If I say yes, I suppose I'll make a good match.
And if I say no, I shall at least be able to boast of a proposal.
Not that there's much satisfaction in that to a practical mind.
Another big advantage. Love is the rock upon which so many well-intentioned young persons split. They engage to marry each other while the intelligence is perverted, the reason unbalanced, and the judgment obscured by an overpowering sentiment. They enter into a solemn life-binding contract in a highly emotional and altogether unnormal moral condition. The disastrous results of such folly we see examples of daily. We will escape that snare. [_He comes close to her._] Of course if the sentiment should subsequently come, if that particular kind of emotion should by chance supervene, we'll deal with it as best we may.
[_Sits on arm of sofa._] Still there must be something in love-making. I remember my sister and the curate seemed to have a very good time. We all thought them fussy, but I know they liked it.
I made love to you in the garden this morning.
Did you? I thought it was pity, and resented it
I refused you because I thought you pitied me, and gave one to Mr. Parbury because I pitied him.
I _should_ if I said yes. [_Leaves him._] But I mean to say no.
Of what people call my "nasty sneering way," for instance.
[_Confidently._] Oh, I could deal with that all right.
I'm sure you could. [_Goes near to her._] Say yes, Hyacinth.
[_To MISS WOODWARD, in low voice._] Send it away. [_She hesitates._] Do.
[_GUNNING moves away to C. with a satisfied smile._
Good-bye, Mr. Gunning. If you were entirely different from what you are, I think I could have liked you; or if I were entirely different from what I am, I think I might have married you. But you are hopelessly modern and cold-blooded, and I am only an old-fashioned, healthy English girl, and a healthy English girl doesn't want to make experiments, she wants to be loved.