Lady Teazle, Lady Teazle, I'll not bear it!
Lady Teaz. Sir Peter, Sir Peter, you may bear it or not, as you please; but I ought to have my own way in everything, and, what's more, I will too. What! though I was educated in the country, I know very well that women of fashion in London are accountable to nobody after they are married.
Sir Pet. Very well, ma'am, very well; so a husband is to have no influence, no authority?
Lady Teaz. Authority! No, to be sure. If you wanted authority over me, you should have adopted me, and not married me: I am sure you were old enough.
Sir Pet. Old enough!—ay, there it is. Well, well, Lady Teazle, though my life may be made unhappy by your temper, I'll not be ruined by your extravagance!
Lady Teaz. My extravagance! I'm sure I'm not more extravagant than a woman of fashion ought to be.
Sir Pet. No, no, madam, you shall throw away no more sums on such unmeaning luxury. Such wastefulness! to spend as much to furnish your dressing-room with flowers in winter as would suffice to turn the Pantheon into a greenhouse, and give a fête champêtre at Christmas.
Lady Teaz. And am I to blame, Sir Peter, because flowers are dear in cold weather? You should find fault with the climate, and not with me. For my part, I'm sure I wish it was spring all the year round, and that roses grew under our feet.
Sir Pet. Oons! madam—if you had been born to this, I shouldn't wonder at your talking thus; but you forget what your situation was when I married you.
Lady Teaz. No, no, I don't; 'twas a very disagreeable one, or I should never have married you.