You mean that I'd only stand between her and you for my own sake?
LADY CREECH
We can comprehend no other grounds.
PIKE
[solemnly]
I don't believe you can! But you can comprehend that I wouldn't have any hope, can't you?
LADY CREECH
One never knows what these weird Americans hope. Hawcastle assures me you have some such idea, but my charge has studied under my instruction—deportment, manners, and ideals—which has lifted her above the mere American circumstance of her birth. She has ambitions. If you [pg 132] stand in the way of them she will wither, she will die like a caged bird. All that was sordid about her parentage she has cast off. We have thought that we might make something out of her.
PIKE
[in a clear voice, looking at her mildly]