"Unray yourself and turn out the light and come to bed," he said to Mrs. Baskerville. He already lay in their great four-poster, and, solid though the monster was, it creaked when Vivian's immense bulk turned upon it.
His wife soon joined him and then he began to talk. He prided himself especially on his reasonableness, after the fashion of unreasonable men.
"It can't go on and it shan't," he said. "Never was heard such a thing as a son defying his father this way. If he'd only given the girl up, then I should have been the first to relax authority and tell him he might have her in due season if she liked to wait. But for him to cleave to her against my express order—'tis a very improper and undutiful thing—specially when you take into account what a father I've been to the man."
"And he've been a good son, too."
"And why not? I was a good son—better than ever Rupert was. And would I have done this? I never thought of marriage till my parents were gone."
"Work was enough for you."
"And so it should be for every young man. But, nowadays, they think of nought but revels and outings and the girls. A poor, slack-twisted generation. My arm would make a leg for any youth I come across nowadays."
"You must remember you'm a wonder, my dear. We can't all be like you."
"My own sons ought to be, anyway. And I've a right to demand it of 'em."
"Rupert works as hard as a man can work—harder a thousand times than Ned."