Nora [uneasily].  Mr Broadbent, I couldn’t.

Broadbent [soothingly].  Wait:  let me break this to you gently, Miss Reilly:  hear me out.  I daresay you have noticed that in speaking to you I have been putting a very strong constraint on myself, so as to avoid wounding your delicacy by too abrupt an avowal of my feelings.  Well, I feel now that the time has come to be open, to be frank, to be explicit.  Miss Reilly:  you have inspired in me a very strong attachment.  Perhaps, with a woman’s intuition, you have already guessed that.

Nora [rising distractedly].  Why do you talk to me in that unfeeling nonsensical way?

Broadbent [rising also, much astonished].  Unfeeling!  Nonsensical!

Nora.  Don’t you know that you have said things to me that no man ought to say unless—­unless—­[she suddenly breaks down again and hides her face on the table as before] Oh, go away from me:  I won’t get married at all:  what is it but heartbreak and disappointment?

Broadbent [developing the most formidable symptoms of rage and grief].  Do you mean to say that you are going to refuse me? that you don’t care for me?

Nora [looking at him in consternation].  Oh, don’t take it to heart, Mr Br—­

Broadbent [flushed and almost choking].  I don’t want to be petted and blarneyed. [With childish rage] I love you.  I want you for my wife. [In despair] I can’t help your refusing.  I’m helpless:  I can do nothing.  You have no right to ruin my whole life.  You—­[a hysterical convulsion stops him].

Nora [almost awestruck].  You’re not going to cry, are you?  I never thought a man could cry.  Don’t.

Broadbent.  I’m not crying.  I—­I—­I leave that sort of thing to your damned sentimental Irishmen.  You think I have no feeling because I am a plain unemotional Englishman, with no powers of expression.

Nora.  I don’t think you know the sort of man you are at all.  Whatever may be the matter with you, it’s not want of feeling.

Broadbent [hurt and petulant].  It’s you who have no feeling.  You’re as heartless as Larry.

Nora.  What do you expect me to do?  Is it to throw meself at your head the minute the word is out o your mouth?

Broadbent [striking his silly head with his fists].  Oh, what a fool! what a brute I am!  It’s only your Irish delicacy:  of course, of course.  You mean Yes.  Eh?  What?  Yes, yes, yes?

Nora.  I think you might understand that though I might choose to be an old maid, I could never marry anybody but you now.

Broadbent [clasping her violently to his breast, with a crow of immense relief and triumph].  Ah, that’s right, that’s right:  That’s magnificent.  I knew you would see what a first-rate thing this will be for both of us.

Nora [incommoded and not at all enraptured by his ardor].  You’re dreadfully strong, an a gradle too free with your strength.  An I never thought o whether it’d be a good thing for us or not.  But when you found me here that time, I let you be kind to me, and cried in your arms, because I was too wretched to think of anything but the comfort of it.  An how could I let any other man touch me after that?