CROCKSTEAD. I will put him in a position to marry you.
ALINE. [In extreme surprise.] What! [She rises.
CROCKSTEAD. Oh, don't be alarmed, I'll manage it pleasantly. I'll give him tips, shares, speculate for him, make him a director of one or two of my companies. He shall have an income of four thousand a year. You can live on that.
ALINE. You are not serious?
CROCKSTEAD. Oh yes; and though men may not like me, they always trust my word. You may.
ALINE. And why will you do this thing?
CROCKSTEAD. Call it caprice—call it a mere vulgar desire to let my magnificence dazzle you—call it the less vulgar desire to know that my money has made you happy with the man you love.
ALINE. That is generous.
CROCKSTEAD. I remember an old poem I learnt at school—which told how Frederick the Great coveted a mill that adjoined a favourite estate of his; but the miller refused to sell. Frederick could have turned him out, of course—there was not very much public opinion in those days—but he respected the miller's firmness, and left him in solid possession. And mark that, at that very same time, he annexed—in other words stole—the province of Silesia.
ALINE. Ah—