Rose: Eighteen lost opportunities. You are the nineteenth. If you refuse to take me, I shall have to look out for my twentieth. Perhaps you can introduce me to one of your friends.
Dr. Van Hyde: Suppose—suppose—I consent to marry you; that is to say, suppose you consent to marry me. How can I be sure that you won’t fall in love with your twentieth—as you call him—to-morrow.
Rose: You can’t be sure. Love has wings like a bird. Its natural action is flight. How can one help loving?
Dr. Van Hyde (tenderly): I should not wish to share your love with another man.
Rose: I don’t understand you.
Dr. Van Hyde (aside): This is the most remarkable case in my experience. The girl is clean daft on one subject. And yet, somehow, I am half inclined to take her at her word. I might succeed in curing her of her mania; I might transform her, create a new woman in this unhappy spirit; I can not abandon her to a wretched fate. (To Rose.) You say you do not understand me?
Rose: I can’t understand why I should not be allowed to love whomever I please.
Dr. Van Hyde: The law declares that you must love but one husband.
Rose: As I could only have one husband at a time, I might still love some one who was not my husband.