GEORGE. Hasty!
OLIVIA. Well, you've only just proposed to me, and you want to marry me to-morrow.
GEORGE. Now you're talking perfect nonsense, Olivia. You know quite well that our case is utterly different from—from any other.
OLIVIA. All the same, one has to ask oneself questions. With a young girl like—well, with a young girl, love may well seem to be all that matters. But with a woman of my age, it is different. I have to ask myself if you can afford to support a wife.
GEORGE (coldly). Fortunately that is a question that you can very easily answer for yourself.
OLIVIA. Well, but I have been hearing rather bad reports lately. What with taxes always going up, and rents always going down, some of our landowners are getting into rather straitened circumstances. At least, so I'm told.
GEORGE. I don't know what you're talking about.
OLIVIA (surprised). Oh, isn't it true? I heard of a case only this morning—a landowner who always seemed to be very comfortably off, but who couldn't afford an allowance for his only niece when she wanted to get married. It made me think that one oughtn't to judge by appearances.
GEORGE. You know perfectly well that I can afford to support a wife as my wife should be supported.
OLIVIA. I'm so glad, dear. Then your income—you aren't getting anxious at all?