one else. [ALINE _bursts out laughing._] That strikes you as funny?

ALINE. If you had the least grain of chivalrous feeling, you would realise
that the man who could speak to a woman as you have spoken to me--

[_She pauses._

CROCKSTEAD. Yes?

ALINE. I leave you to finish the sentence.

CROCKSTEAD. Thank you. I will finish it my own way. I will say that when a
woman deliberately tries to wring an offer of marriage from a man whom
she does not love, she deserves to be spoken to as I have spoken to you,
Lady Aline.

ALINE. [_Scornfully._] Love! What has love to do with marriage?

CROCKSTEAD. That remark rings hollow. You have been good enough to tell me
of your cousin, whom you did love--

ALINE. Well?

CROCKSTEAD. And with whom you would have eloped, had your mother not
prevented you.

ALINE. I most certainly should.

CROCKSTEAD. So you see that at one period of your life you thought
differently.--You were very fond of him?