Beau. You mistake me, madam—Pauline, you mistake me! I come to lay my fortune at your feet. You must already be disenchanted with this impostor; these walls are not worthy to be hallowed by your beauty! Shall that form be clasped in the arms of a base-born peasant? Beloved, beautiful Pauline! fly with me—my carriage waits without—I will bear you to a home more meet for your reception. Wealth, luxury, station—all shall yet be yours. I forget your past disdain—I remember only your beauty and my unconquerable love!
Pauline. Sir! leave this house—it is humble: but a husband’s roof, however lowly, is, in the eyes of God and man, the temple of a wife’s honor! Know that I would rather starve—yes—with him who has betrayed me, than accept your lawful hand, even were you the prince whose name he bore.—Go.
Beau. What! is not your pride humbled yet?
Pauline. Sir, what was pride in prosperity in affliction becomes virtue.
Beau. Look round: these rugged floors—these homely walls—this wretched struggle of poverty for comfort—think of this! and contrast with such a picture the refinement, the luxury, the pomp, that the wealthiest gentleman of Lyons offers to the loveliest lady. Ah, hear me!
Pauline. Oh! my father!—why did I leave you?—why am I thus friendless? Sir, you see before you a betrayed, injured, miserable woman!—respect her anguish.
[MELNOTTE opens the door silently, and pauses at the threshold.
Beau. No! let me rather thus console it; let me snatch from those lips one breath of that fragrance which never should be wasted on the low churl thy husband.
Pauline. Help! Claude!—Claude!—Have I no protector?’
Beau. Be silent! [showing a pistol.] See, I do not come unprepared even for violence. I will brave all things—thy husband and all his race— for thy sake. Thus, then, I clasp thee!