human
There are no family ties keeping me from you, she murmurs, as firmly as she may;
gpt
I do not understand. I love you, Heaven knows, most fervently, Perdita; but whether you have bought it or not, I cannot say. It is yours, and cannot be recalled.
human
And I cannot take it under such circumstances as those in which I won it. When you understand fully your affairs, you will then see how mercenary I would be to accept your love now.
gpt
Mercenary? My poor child? I offer you this poor, wasted hand, and a broken constitution, and penniless prospects wherewith to be happy; and it is a part of my native selfishness to imagine that my great love could compensate for all drawbacks, but there is not the smallest room for suspecting you of mercenary motives--not the smallest.
human
I have heard it said --this with piteous hesitation--
gpt
Dismiss that rumor from your mind, he says, in a relieved tone;
human
But if she didn't wish it? trembled Margaret;
gpt
Not she.
human
But if she did?
gpt
I hope she never may, darling. If she did, and if I were ever base enough to accept it, I should have in honor to propose to her by way of gratitude, and because my grandmother's will said so; and I would rather be an organ-grinder, with a monkey tied to my girdle, than be the heir of Castle Brand with Margaret Walsingham for my wife.
human
Perhaps you misjudge her. Perhaps she was as unwilling to be the obstacle between you and your property as you were that she should be so.
gpt
You are generous, my little mother, to defend one of the greediest _kestrels_ who ever struck claw into carrion; but you are not just. I have no doubt that if she ever brought herself to try such an experiment as offering her booty to me, it would be with the assurance that I would refuse it, or with the hope that common decency would urge me to marry her.
human
She would never marry you,
gpt
Well, we sha'n't give her the chance. Let us turn from a very groveling subject (to my mind), and get over your next objection to me. We have sent the mercenary one a-flying--now for the next.
human
That is the only one. Let us leave the subject altogether. You will know more fully what I meant to-morrow.