brought up in a household which cost at least seven or eight times
that; and I am in constant money difficulties because I simply dont
know how to live on the thousand a year scale. As to ask a woman to
share my degrading poverty, it's out of the question. Besides, I'm
rather young to marry. I'm only 28.

HYPATIA. Papa: buy the brute for me.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. _[shrinking]_ My dear Miss Tarleton: dont be so
naughty. I know how delightful it is to shock an old man; but there
is a point at which it becomes barbarous. Dont. Please dont.

HYPATIA. Shall I tell Papa about you?

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Tarleton: I had better tell you that I once asked
your daughter to become my widow.

TARLETON. _[to Hypatia]_ Why didnt you accept him, you young idiot?

LORD SUMMERHAYS. I was too old.

TARLETON. All this has been going on under my nose, I suppose. You
run after young men; and old men run after you. And I'm the last
person in the world to hear of it.

HYPATIA. How could I tell you?

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Parents and children, Tarleton.

TARLETON. Oh, the gulf that lies between them! the impassable,