CROCKSTEAD. I have the advantage of you, you see, inasmuch as you have many dear friends, who have told me all about you.
ALINE. [With growing exasperation, but keeping very cool.] Indeed?
CROCKSTEAD. I am aware, for instance, that this is your ninth season—
ALINE. [Snapping her fan.] You are remarkably well-informed.
CROCKSTEAD. I have been told that again to-night, three times, by charming young women who vowed that they loved you. Now, as I have no dearest friends, it is unlikely that you will have heard anything equally definite concerning myself. I propose to enlighten you.
ALINE. [Satirically.] The story of your life—how thrilling!
CROCKSTEAD. I trust you may find it so. [He sits, and pauses for a moment, then begins, very quietly.] Lady Aline, I am a self-made man, as the foolish phrase has it—a man whose early years were spent in savage and desolate places, where the devil had much to say; a man in whom whatever there once had been of natural kindness was very soon kicked out. I was poor, and lonely, for thirty-two years: I have been rich, and lonely, for ten. My millions have been made honestly enough; but poverty and wretchedness had left their mark on me, and you will find very few men with a good word to say for Harrison Crockstead. I have no polish, or culture, or tastes. Art wearies me, literature sends me to sleep—
ALINE. When you come to the chapter of your personal deficiencies, Mr. Crockstead, please remember that they are sufficiently evident for me to have already observed them.
CROCKSTEAD. [Without a trace of annoyance.] That is true. I will pass, then, to more intimate matters. In a little township in Australia—a horrible place where there was gold—I met a woman whom I loved. She was what is technically known as a bad woman. She ran away with another man. I tracked them to Texas, and in a mining camp there I shot the man. I wanted to take the woman back, but she refused. That has been my solitary love affair; and I shall never love any woman again as I loved her. I think that is all that I have to tell you. And now—will you marry me, Lady Aline?
ALINE. [Very steadily, facing him.] Not if you were the last man in this world, Mr. Crockstead.