Interrupting him--Indifference let it be--you have not (in my opinion at
least) deserved that it should be other: if you have in your own, you
have cause (at least your pride has) to hate me for misjudging you.
Dearest, dearest creature! snatching my hand with fierceness, let me
beseech you to be uniformly noble! Civil regards, Madam!--Civil regards!
--Can you so expect to narrow and confine such a passion as mine?
Such a passion as yours, Mr. Lovelace, deserves to be narrowed and
confined. It is either the passion you do not think it, or I do not. I
question whether your mind is capable of being so narrowed and so
widened, as is necessary to make it be what I wish it to be. Lift up
your hands and your eyes, Sir, in silent wonder, if you please; but what
does that wonder express, what does it convince me of, but that we are
not born for one another.
By my soul, said he, and grasped my hand with an eagerness that hurt it,
we were born for one another: you must be mine--you shall be mine [and
put his other hand round me] although my damnation were to be the
purchase!
I was still more terrified--let me leave you, Mr. Lovelace, said I; or do
you be gone from me. Is the passion you boast of to be thus shockingly
demonstrated?