Mr. Magnus, please don’t include me in your generalities—I am not like other girls—
[Mrs. Felix finishes explaining.
ONFROY (turning)
That one remark proves you are, dear Lady Disdain. It is one of the ninety-and-nine banalities that make up what the average young woman calls her opinions. Another is the following remark addressed to men who are sane about women: “Ah, wait until you meet the right one!”
MAGNUS (still chuckling)
They love it—love it! Fanny pretends not to; but that’s because she knows he’s married and she can’t get him. If the boy in there treated you as this coxcomb does my daughter, you wouldn’t mind living on nothing a year in the Sahara Desert.
FANNY
Mr. Magnus—
MAGNUS
Oh, I know—Olive was all you are, Fanny, and more. Then along comes the coxcomb. In three weeks she’s telling me he says he can’t afford to marry her—and won’t I please settle a dowry on them so that he can give up portrait painting where all the women are wild about him—marry her—and settle down to art for art’s sake.