LADY. All of them, because I want to know who it is I've linked my life to. And I want to suppress everything that might minister to his pride. In a word, I isolate him, so that he has to keep his own electricity and run the danger of being broken to pieces.
MOTHER. How learnèd you've grown?
LADY. Yes. If he's unwise enough to confide almost everything to me, I'll soon hold his fate in my hand. Now, if you please, he's making electrical experiments and claims he'll be able to harness the lightning, so that it'll give him light, warmth and power. Well, let him do as he likes! From a letter that came to-day I see he's even corresponding with alchemists.
MOTHER. Does he want to make gold? Is the man sane?
LADY. That's the important question. Whether he's a charlatan doesn't matter so much.
MOTHER. Do you suspect it?
LADY. I'd believe any evil of him, and any good, on the same day.
MOTHER. Is there any other news?
LADY. The plans my divorced husband made for a new marriage have gone wrong; he's grown melancholic, abandoned his practice and is tramping the roads.
MOTHER. Oh! He was always my son-in-law. He had a kind heart under his rough manner.