Yes!
PIKE. An answer to what?
HAWCASTLE [painfully resuming his suavity]. An answer to our request
that you accede to the wishes of that young lady.
PIKE. And if I don't, what are you going to do?
HORACE. Ethel, you _must_ go!
MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY. This man is an Apache!
LADY CREECH [simultaneously]. Barbarian!
PIKE [to HAWCASTLE]. I'll leave it to you to tell her.
HAWCASTLE. A gentleman would spare her that.
PIKE. _I_ won't! Speak out! Why do you come here sure of the answer you
want?
HAWCASTLE [intensely annoyed]. Tut, tut!
LADY CREECH. Don't mumble your words!
PIKE. I'll make it even plainer than you like.
HORACE. I protest against this!
ALMERIC. Throw the rotter out of the window!
PIKE [particularly addressing ETHEL]. This afternoon I tried to help a
poor devil--a broken-down Russian running away from Siberia, where he'd
been for nine years.
[She rises; her eyes eagerly meet his.]
A poor weak thing, hounded like you've seen a rat in the gutter by dogs
and bootblacks. Some of your friends here saw us bring him into this
apartment; they know we've got him here now. If I don't agree to hand
over you and seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars of the money John
Simpson made, it means that the man I have tried to help goes back to
rot in Siberia and I go to an Italian jail for two years, or as much
longer as they can make it.
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