"Father, much as it costs me to thwart your plans, what you ask is impossible," replied the young man, sadly.
"Louis, can it be you that answers me in this way when I appeal to your love for me?"
"In the first place, you would derive no personal advantage from this marriage. You are thinking only of my interest when you urge it upon me."
"What! is it nothing to be able to live with Ramon without being obliged to spend a sou? For it is understood that we are to live there for nothing, I tell you, as he gives his daughter no dowry."
"So long as I have a drop of blood in my veins, I will accept charity from no man, father. More than once already I have begged you to abandon your profession of scrivener, and let me supply our modest wants without any assistance from you. I can easily do it by working a little harder."
"But if your health should fail, and old age should prevent me from earning a livelihood, there would be nothing left for me but to go to the almshouse."
"I have faith in my courage. I shall not lose my health, and you will want for nothing; but, if I had to marry Mlle. Ramon, I should certainly die of grief and despair."
"You are not in earnest, Louis?"
"I certainly am, father. I feel, and I always shall feel, an unconquerable aversion to Mlle. Ramon; besides, I love a young girl, and she, and she alone, shall be my wife."
"I fancied I had your confidence, and yet you have come to such an important decision as this without my even suspecting it."