VERNON. Let’s forget I ever did. [He kneels beside her.] I didn’t do it for my own sake, as you know. A man in my position has to think of other people. His wife has to take her place in society. People insist upon knowing something about her. It’s not enough for the stupid “County” that she’s the cleverest, most bewilderingly beautiful, bewitching lady in the land.
FANNY. And how long will you think all that?
VERNON. For ever, and ever, and ever.
FANNY. Oh, you dear boy. [She kisses him.] You don’t know how a woman loves the man she loves to love her. [Laughs.] Isn’t that complicated?
VERNON. Not at all. We’re just the same. We love to love the woman we love.
FANNY. Provided the “County” will let us. And the County has said: A man may not marry his butler’s niece.
VERNON [laughing]. You’ve got butlers on the brain. If ever I do run away with my own cook or under-housemaid, it will be your doing.
FANNY. You haven’t the pluck! The “County” would laugh at you. You men are so frightened of being laughed at.
VERNON [he rises]. Well, if it saves us from making asses of ourselves—
FANNY. Wasn’t there a niece of old Bennet’s, a girl who had been brought up abroad, and who wasn’t a domestic servant—never had been—who stayed with them here, at the gardener’s cottage, for a short time, some few years ago?