Horace. Merely because I prefer a quiet evening to myself and my books? Because I prefer scientific discovery to heartless frivolity? Absurd.
Aunt. You are forgetting your duty to the girl you are going to make your wife. You seem to think because she was adopted by your mother you have the right to order her about as if she were a servant.
Horace. You know you are talking absolute rot.
Aunt. You make her feel her dependent position, and I think that very unfair.
Horace. But, hang it all, she is not dependent. My mother provided for her sufficiently.
Aunt. Yes, I know, but everything comes from our family, and you never allow her to forget the fact. She considers she owes you a debt of gratitude.
Horace. If it comes to that—well, she does.
Aunt. You ought never to let her feel that. You should try to win her heart.
Horace. Oh, bother. I have won her heart. We are engaged.