HYPATIA. Why?
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Oh come, Miss Tarleton! Really, really! Dont force
me to call you a blackmailer to your face. You have me in your power;
and I do what you tell me very obediently. Dont ask me to pretend I
do it of my own free will.
HYPATIA. I dont know what a blackmailer is. I havnt even that much
experience.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. A blackmailer, my dear young lady, is a person who
knows a disgraceful secret in the life of another person, and extorts
money from that other person by threatening to make his secret public
unless the money is paid.
HYPATIA. I havnt asked you for money.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. No; but you asked me to come down here and talk to
you; and you mentioned casually that if I didnt youd have nobody to
talk about me to but Bentley. That was a threat, was it not?
HYPATIA. Well, I wanted you to come.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. In spite of my age and my unfortunate talkativeness?
HYPATIA. I like talking to you. I can let myself go with you. I can
say things to you I cant say to other people.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. I wonder why?
HYPATIA. Well, you are the only really clever, grown-up, high-class,
experienced man I know who has given himself away to me by making an
utter fool of himself with me. You cant wrap yourself up in your toga
after that.
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