SCENE I.—SIR PETER and LADY TEAZLE
SIR PETER. Lady Teazle—Lady Teazle I'll not bear it.
LADY TEAZLE. Sir Peter—Sir Peter you—may scold or smile, according to your Humour[,] but I ought to have my own way in everything, and what's more I will too—what! tho' 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 PETER. Very well! ma'am very well! so a husband is to have no influence, no authority?
LADY TEAZLE. 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 PETER. Old enough—aye there it is—well—well—Lady Teazle, tho' my life may be made unhappy by your Temper—I'll not be ruined by your extravagance—
LADY TEAZLE. My extravagance! I'm sure I'm not more extravagant than a woman of Fashion ought to be.
SIR PETER. No no Madam, you shall throw away no more sums on such unmeaning Luxury—'Slife 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 Fete Champetre at Christmas.
LADY TEAZLE. Lord! Sir Peter am I to blame 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 one's Feet!
SIR PETER. Oons! Madam—if you had been born to those Fopperies I shouldn't wonder at your talking thus;—but you forget what your situation was when I married you—