'The rag-puppet shall be animated and repaid if I have life. I wish to respect my hero. Have a little mercy. Our day will come: perhaps as wonderfully as this wonderful news. My friend, drop your hands. Have you forgotten who I am? I want to think, Percy!'
'But you are mine.'
'You are abasing your own.'
'No, by heaven!'
'Worse, dear friend; you are lowering yourself to the woman who loves you.'
'You must imagine me superhuman.'
'I worship you—or did.'
'Be reasonable, Tony. What harm! Surely a trifle of recompense? Just to let me feel I live! You own you love me. Then I am your lover.'
'My dear friend Percy, when I have consented to be your paramour, this kind of treatment of me will not want apologies.'
The plain speaking from the wound he dealt her was effective with a gentleman who would never have enjoyed his privileges had he been of a nature unsusceptible to her distinct wish and meaning.