STRANGER. Yes, that's what I thought. I should think it would stand a thousand.
LADY PEMBURY. What is it? An invention of some sort?
STRANGER. Oh no, not an invention. . . . A discovery.
LADY PEMBURY. How proud she would have been!
STRANGER. Who?
LADY PEMBURY. Your wife if you had had one; your mother if she had been alive.
STRANGER (violently). Look here, you leave my mother out of it. My business is with Sir John—— (sneeringly) Sir John Pembury, K.B.E. If I want to talk about my mother, he and I will have a nice little talk together about her. Yes, and about my father, too.
(LADY PEMBURY understands at last. She stands up slowly, and looks at him, horrified.)
LADY PEMBURY. What do you mean?
STRANGER. A thousand a year. You said so yourself. Yes, I think it's worth a thousand a year.