Why, think what would happen to an eager intellect like Ernest Hamilton's if he had to come back to a narrow-minded apartment or a dreary suburb every evening and eat morbid meals opposite a housewife regaling him with the social ambitions of the other commuters. Ugh! It has ruined enough brilliant men already. [Judge restrains Theodore and others who want to interrupt.] Now at the University Club he dines, at slight expense compared with keeping up a home, upon the best food in the city with some of the best scientists in the country.... Marriage would divorce him from all that, would transplant him from an atmosphere of ideas into an atmosphere of worries. We should be forced into the same deadly ruts as the rest of you, uncle. Do you want me to destroy a great career, Theodore?
Theodore
Do you want to be a blot upon that career?
Helen
[lightly]
I'd rather be a blot than a blight, and that's what I'd be if I became his bride. Ask John.
Lucy
Do you want to be disgraced, despised, ostracized!
Helen
[smiles at Lucy]