The New Woman Part 17

GERALD.

My name is Gerald.

MARGERY.

Mr. Gerald!

GERALD.

Gerald! Call me so, Margery.

MARGERY.

I couldn't, sir. Don't ask me!

GERALD.

Then you refuse me? [_MARGERY is silent--he turns away._] Well, I don't deserve you.

MARGERY [_approaching him._]

Oh, don't think I mean that! Do you suppose you are the only man that's ever made love to me? It's a man's business to make love; and it's a woman's business to stop him--when he makes love too hard. But if we can't be lovers, Mr. Gerald, we can be friends.

GERALD.

It's got past friends.h.i.+p with me, Margery. Since I came back to town, everything's changed. My pursuits all feel so empty and so meaningless; every woman I meet seems different from what she was: and oh, how different from _you!_

MARGERY.

Gentry _are_ different. We're different breeds. That's why we can't be lovers.

GERALD.

We can be man and wife!

MARGERY.

Isn't that being lovers?

GERALD.

In my case, it would be!

MARGERY.

Hus.h.!.+ Mr. Gerald, that's impossible. My lady will be asking for me.

Let me go!

GERALD.

Not till I've told you how I love you, Margery. Seeing you again is breathing the pure air. It seems a younger and a sweeter world, now you have come again. Nothing else matters. All my life beside appears a folly and a waste of time. My real life was lived with you down yonder, out in the fields, and rambling through the woods and listening to the music of the weir. The life that we began together so pleasantly, cannot we live together to the end? I was quite honest when I said I loved you. And couldn't you love _me,_--just a little bit?

MARGERY.

You oughtn't to ask that!

GERALD.

I mean to have an answer.

MARGERY.

Please, Mr. Gerald, don't! It makes it very hard for me----

GERALD.

Answer me! Could you love me, Margery?

MARGERY.

Oh, what's the use of asking? You only want to make me tell a lie.

GERALD.

Answer me!

MARGERY.

I _have_ answered you!

GERALD.

Margery, then you do!

MARGERY.

That is what made it easy to forgive you. Now let me go.

GERALD.

Not till you've said that you will be my wife.

MARGERY.

Oh, Mr. Gerald.

GERALD.