VALENTINE. Not at all.
GLORIA. My only excuse is that it is very difficult to give consideration and respect when there is no dignity of character on the other side to command it.
VALENTINE (prosaically). How is a man to look dignified when he's infatuated?
GLORIA (effectually unstilted). Don't say those things to me. I forbid you. They are insults.
VALENTINE. No: they're only follies. I can't help them.
GLORIA. If you were really in love, it would not make you foolish: it would give you dignity—earnestness—even beauty.
VALENTINE. Do you really think it would make me beautiful? (She turns her back on him with the coldest contempt.) Ah, you see you're not in earnest. Love can't give any man new gifts. It can only heighten the gifts he was born with.
GLORIA (sweeping round at him again). What gifts were you born with, pray?
VALENTINE. Lightness of heart.
GLORIA. And lightness of head, and lightness of faith, and lightness of everything that makes a man.