SCA. That's quite true.
ARG. To marry without his father's consent!
SCA. Yes, there is something to be said against it, but my opinion is that you should make no fuss about it.
ARG. This is your opinion, but not mine; and I will make as much fuss as I please. What! do you not think that I have every reason to be angry?
SCA. Quite so. I was angry myself when I first heard it; and I so far felt interested in your behalf that I rated your son well. Just ask him the fine sermons I gave him, and how I lectured him about the little respect he showed his father, whose very footsteps he ought to kiss. You could not yourself talk better to him. But what of that? I submitted to reason, and considered that, after all, he had done nothing so dreadful.
ARG. What are you telling me? He has done nothing so dreadful? When he goes and marries straight off a perfect stranger?
SCA. What can one do? he was urged to it by his destiny.
ARG. Oh, oh! You give me there a fine reason. One has nothing better to do now than to commit the greatest crime imaginable—to cheat, steal, and murder—and give for an excuse that we were urged to it by destiny.
SCA. Ah me! You take my words too much like a philosopher. I mean to say that he was fatally engaged in this affair.
ARG. And why did he engage in it?