BARONESS. You know how to pay compliments even in the moment of separation. Perhaps you don't hate me as much as you pretend?
BARON. Frankly speaking, I think that I hate not so much you as my dishonour, though you, too, come in for a share. And why this hatred? Perhaps I have overlooked that you are near the forties, and that a masculine element is making its appearance in you. Perhaps it is this element that I notice in your kisses, in your embraces—perhaps that is what I find so repulsive?
BARONESS. Perhaps. For the sorrow of my life has been, as you well know, that I was not born a man.
BARON. Perhaps that became the sorrow of my life! And now you try to avenge yourself on nature for having played with you, and so you want to bring up your son as a woman. Will you promise me one thing?
BARONESS. Will you promise me one thing?
BARON. What is the use of promising?
BARONESS. No, let us give no more promises.
BARON. Will you answer a question truthfully?
BARONESS. If I told the truth, you would think I lied.
BARON. Yes, so I should!