human
It's all nonsense--your living as you do--like a professional trained nurse.
gpt
The life of a professional trained nurse isn't nonsense.
human
It is for you.
gpt
On the contrary; it's for me, more than for almost any one, to justify my right to being in the world.
human
Oh, come now! Don't let us begin on that.
gpt
I don't want to begin on it. I'd much rather not. But if you don't, you throw away the key that explains everything about me.
human
All right, he rejoined, in an argumentative tone.
gpt
Let's talk about it, then. Let's have it out. You feel your position; granted. Mind you, I've always said you wouldn't have done so if it hadn't been for Gertrude Wayne. The world to-day has too much common sense to lay stress on a circumstance of that kind. Believe me, nobody thinks about it but yourself. Did Lady Bonchurch? Did any of her friends? You've got it a little bit--just a little bit--on the brain; and the fault isn't yours; it belongs to the woman whose soul is gone, I hope, where it's freed from the rules of a book of etiquette.
human
She meant well--
gpt
Oh, every failure, and bungler, and mischief-maker means well. That's their charter. I'm not concerned with that. I'm speaking of what she did. She fixed it in your mind that you were like a sapling sprung from a seed blown outside the orchard. You think you can minimize that accident by bringing forth as good as any to be found within the pale. Consequently you've taken a poor, helpless, blind man off the hands of the people whose duty it is to look after him--and who are well able to do it--
human
That isn't the reason, she declared, flushing.
gpt
If Mr. Wayne and I live together it's because we're used to each other--and in a way he has taken the place of my father.
human
Oh, come now! That's all very fine. But haven't you got in the back of your mind the thought that the wild tree that's known by its good fruit is the one that's best worth grafting?
gpt
If I had--
human
If you had, you'd simply be taking a long way round, when there's a short cut home. I'm the orchard, Miriam. All you've got to do is to walk into it--with me.