hugh. You must take that money of mine for your clients. Of course you ought to have had it when you asked for it. It has never belonged to me. Well . . it has never done me any good. I have never made any use of it and so it has been just a clog to my life.
edward. [surprised.] My dear Hugh . . this is very generous of you.
hugh. Not a bit. I only want to start fresh and free.
edward. [sitting back from his work.] Hugh, do you really think that money has carried a curse with it?
hugh. [with great violence.] Think! I'm the proof of it and look at me. When I said I'd be an artist the governor gave me a hundred and fifty a year . . the rent of a studio and the price of a velvet coat he thought it; that was all he knew about art. Then my respectable training got me engaged and married. Marriage in a studio puzzled the governor, so he guessed it at two hundred and fifty a year . . and looked for lay figure-babies, I suppose. What had I to do with Art? Nothing I've done yet but reflects our drawing-room at Chislehurst.
edward. [considering.] Yes . . What do you earn in a year? I doubt if you can afford to give this up.
hugh. Oh, Edward . . you clank the chain with the best of them. That word Afford! I want to be free from my advantages. Don't you see I must find out what I'm worth in myself . . whether I even exist or not? Perhaps I'm only a pretence of a man animated by an income.
edward. But you can't return to nature on the London pavements.
hugh. No. Nor in England at all . . it's nothing but a big back garden. [now he collects himself for a final outburst.] But if there's no place on this earth where a man can prove his right to live by some other means than robbing his neighbour . . I'd better go and request the next horse I meet to ride me . . to the nearest lunatic asylum.