John.[Takes out his purse and throws a silver coin on the table.] If you don’t mind, I don’t like being in anybody’s debt.
Julie.[As though she had not noticed the insult.] Do you know what the law provides?
John. Unfortunately the law does not provide any penalty for the woman who seduces a man.
Julie.[As before.] Can you find any other way out than that we should travel, marry and then get divorced again?
John. And if I refuse to take on the mesalliance?
Julie. Mesalliance?
John. Yes, for me. I’ve got better ancestors than you have: I haven’t got any incendiaries in my pedigree.
Julie. How do you know?
John. At any rate, you can’t prove the contrary, for we have no other pedigree than what you can see in the registry. But I read in a book on the drawing-room table about your pedigree. Do you know what the founder of your line was? A miller with whose wife the king spent a night during the Danish war. I don’t run to ancestors like that. I’ve got no ancestors at all, as a matter of fact, but I can be an ancestor myself.
Julie. This is what I get for opening my heart to a cad, for giving away my family honor.