AUSTIN. Man, can't you see I'm not romancing? Do you think I'd come to you with this if I wasn't desperate?
JACK. It's a pretty desperate thing to do. Suppose I blabbed?
AUSTIN. Yes. There's that. It ought to show you just how desperate I am. You know, and no one better, how this Club's been run. You know there's blackguardism in the game, but Blackton hasn't stooped. Whatever other clubs have done, Blackton has stood for sport, the straight, the honest game. The Blackton Club's my life's work, Metherell. I might have done a nobler thing, but there it is. I chose the Club. I gave it life and kept it living, and the time's come now when I can't keep it living any more. Twice top of the League and once winners of the Cup. It's had a great past, Metherell, an honourable past. It's earned the right to live, and now it's in your hands to kill the Blackton Club and end the thing I've fostered till it's seemed I only lived for that one thing. It isn't much to ask. A little compromise to save the Club you've played for all these years, to save the club and me.
JACK. I cannot do it, Mr. Whitworth.
(Austin sinks hopelessly into armchair.)
EDMUND (briskly). Now you referred to your conscience, Mr. Metherell. My experience is that when a man does that he's open to negotiation.
JACK. Money won't buy my conscience, sir.
EDMUND (half mockingly). Well, are you open to barter?
JACK. No. The thing I want from you is no more to be bought than my conscience is.
AUSTIN (without hope). You do want something from me, then?