VIOLET. [sharply] I beg your pardon, Mr Malone: I do not think anything so foolish. Hector must have money.
MALONE. [staggered] Oh, very well, very well. No doubt he can work for it.
VIOLET. What is the use of having money if you have to work for it? [She rises impatiently]. It's all nonsense, Mr Malone: you must enable your son to keep up his position. It is his right.
MALONE. [grimly] I should not advise you to marry him on the strength of that right, Miss Robinson.
Violet, who has almost lost her temper, controls herself with an effort; unclenches her fingers; and resumes her seat with studied tranquillity and reasonableness.
VIOLET. What objection have you to me, pray? My social position is as good as Hector's, to say the least. He admits it.
MALONE. [shrewdly] You tell him so from time to time, eh? Hector's social position in England, Miss Robinson, is just what I choose to buy for him. I have made him a fair offer. Let him pick out the most historic house, castle or abbey that England contains. The day that he tells me he wants it for a wife worthy of its traditions, I buy it for him, and give him the means of keeping it up.
VIOLET. What do you mean by a wife worthy of its traditions? Cannot any well bred woman keep such a house for him?
MALONE. No: she must be born to it.
VIOLET. Hector was not born to it, was he?