My dear! (Recollecting
herself.) I beg your pardon, Gloria. Certainly, if you wish. (She
bows to Valentine and goes out.)
VALENTINE. Oh, if your mother were only a widow! She's worth six of
you.
GLORIA. That is the first thing I have heard you say that does you
honor.
VALENTINE. Stuff! Come: say what you want to say and let me go.
GLORIA. I have only this to say. You dragged me down to your level
for a moment this afternoon. Do you think, if that had ever happened
before, that I should not have been on my guard---that I should not have
known what was coming, and known my own miserable weakness?
VALENTINE (scolding at her passionately). Don't talk of it in that
way. What do I care for anything in you but your weakness, as you call
it? You thought yourself very safe, didn't you, behind your advanced
ideas! I amused myself by upsetting t h e m pretty easily.
GLORIA (insolently, feeling that now she can do as she likes with
him). Indeed!
VALENTINE. But why did I do it? Because I was being tempted to
awaken your heart---to stir the depths in you. Why was I tempted?
Because Nature was in deadly earnest with me when I was in jest with
her. When the great moment came, who was awakened? who was stirred? in
whom did the depths break up? In myself--- m y s e l f: I was
transported: you were only offended---shocked.
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