[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.