MORELL (meaningly). Perhaps because I was not interrupted at the end of ten minutes.
MARCHBANKS (taken aback). What!
MORELL. Man can climb to the highest summits; but he cannot dwell there long.
MARCHBANKS. It's false: there can he dwell for ever and there only. It's in the other moments that he can find no rest, no sense of the silent glory of life. Where would you have me spend my moments, if not on the summits?
MORELL. In the scullery, slicing onions and filling lamps.
MARCHBANKS. Or in the pulpit, scrubbing cheap earthenware souls?
MORELL. Yes, that, too. It was there that I earned my golden moment, and the right, in that moment, to ask her to love me. I did not take the moment on credit; nor did I use it to steal another man's happiness.
MARCHBANKS (rather disgustedly, trotting back towards the fireplace). I have no doubt you conducted the transaction as honestly as if you were buying a pound of cheese. (He stops on the brink of the hearth-rug and adds, thoughtfully, to himself, with his back turned to Morell) I could only go to her as a beggar.
MORELL (starting). A beggar dying of cold—asking for her shawl?
MARCHBANKS (turning, surprised). Thank you for touching up my poetry. Yes, if you like, a beggar dying of cold asking for her shawl.