Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 4).djvu/163

 ging his shoulders].
 * Old fossil Highnesses who make it
 * their pride to keep plebeian blots
 * excluded from their line's escutcheon.

MR. COTTON
 * Then nothing came of the affair?

MONSIEUR BALLON
 * The family opposed the marriage?

PEER
 * Far from it!

MONSIEUR BALLON
 * Ah!

PEER [with forbearance].
 * You understand
 * that certain circumstances made for
 * their marrying us without delay.
 * But, truth to tell, the whole affair
 * was, first to last, distasteful to me.
 * I'm finical in certain ways,
 * and like to stand on my own feet.
 * And when my father-in-law came out
 * with delicately veiled demands
 * that I should change my name and station,
 * and undergo ennoblement,
 * with much else that was most distasteful,
 * not to say quite inacceptable,-
 * why then I gracefully withdrew,
 * point-blank declined his ultimatum-
 * and so renounced my youthful bride.

[Drums on the table with a devout air