CROFTS. Only that you’ve always lived on it. It paid for your education and the dress you have on your back. Don’t turn up your nose at business, Miss Vivie: where would your Newnhams and Girtons be without it?
VIVIE [rising, almost beside herself] Take care. I know what this business is.
CROFTS [starting, with a suppressed oath] Who told you?
VIVIE. Your partner. My mother.
CROFTS [black with rage] The old—
VIVIE. Just so.
[He swallows the epithet and stands for a moment swearing and raging foully to himself. But he knows that his cue is to be sympathetic. He takes refuge in generous indignation.]
CROFTS. She ought to have had more consideration for you. I’d never have told you.
VIVIE. I think you would probably have told me when we were married: it would have been a convenient weapon to break me in with.
CROFTS [quite sincerely] I never intended that. On my word as a gentleman I didn’t.