You dont call that an event in one's life, do you?
With you it was different. I should as soon have expected the North
Pole to fall in love with me as you. You know I'm only a
linen-draper's daughter when all's said. I was afraid of you: you, a
great man! a lord! and older than my father. And then what a
situation it was! Just think of it! I was engaged to your son; and
you knew nothing about it. He was afraid to tell you: he brought you
down here because he thought if he could throw us together I could get
round you because I was such a ripping girl. We arranged it all: he
and I. We got Papa and Mamma and Johnny out of the way splendidly;
and then Bentley took himself off, and left us--you and me!--to take a
walk through the heather and admire the scenery of Hindhead. You
never dreamt that it was all a plan: that what made me so nice was
the way I was playing up to my destiny as the sweet girl that was to
make your boy happy. And then! and then! _[She rises to dance and
clap her hands in her glee]._
LORD SUMMERHAYS. _[shuddering]_ Stop, stop. Can no woman understand
a man's delicacy?
HYPATIA. _[revelling in the recollection]_ And then--ha, ha!--you
proposed. You! A father! For your son's girl!
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Stop, I tell you. Dont profane what you dont
understand.
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