VALENTINE. For behaving like a bear. What will your daughter think of me for having brought you here?
CRAMPTON. I was not thinking of what my daughter was thinking of you.
VALENTINE. No, you were thinking of yourself. You're a perfect maniac.
CRAMPTON (heartrent). She told you what I am—a father—a father robbed of his children. What are the hearts of this generation like? Am I to come here after all these years—to see what my children are for the first time! to hear their voices!—and carry it all off like a fashionable visitor; drop in to lunch; be Mr. Crampton—M i s t e r Crampton! What right have they to talk to me like that? I'm their father: do they deny that? I'm a man, with the feelings of our common humanity: have I no rights, no claims? In all these years who have I had round me? Servants, clerks, business acquaintances. I've had respect from them—aye, kindness. Would one of them have spoken to me as that girl spoke?—would one of them have laughed at me as that boy was laughing at me all the time? (Frantically.) My own children! M i s t e r Crampton! My—
VALENTINE. Come, come: they're only children. The only one of them that's worth anything called you father.
CRAMPTON (wildly). Yes: "good-bye, father." Oh, yes: she got at my feelings—with a stab!
VALENTINE (taking this in very bad part). Now look here, Crampton: you just let her alone: she's treated you very well. I had a much worse time of it at lunch than you.
CRAMPTON. You!
VALENTINE (with growing impetuosity). Yes: I. I sat next to her; and I never said a single thing to her the whole time—couldn't think of a blessed word. And not a word did she say to me.
CRAMPTON. Well?