"You know perfectly well what I want to speak about." The awkward part of this was that the Professor did know. "Suppose I do; go on!" This only improved his position very slightly, but it compelled the bill to be read a first time. "Do you wish your daughter to marry a haberdasher?" "I do not. If I did, I should take her round to some of the shops." But his wife is in no humour to be jested with. "If you cannot be serious, Mr. Wilson, about a serious matter, which concerns the lifelong well-being of your eldest daughter, I am only wasting my time in talking to you." She threatens an adjournment with a slight move. Her husband selects another attitude, and comes to business. "You may just as well say what you have come to say, Roberta. It's about Laetitia and this young musician fellow, I suppose. Why can't you leave them alone?" Now, you see, here was a little triumph for Roberta--she had actually succeeded in getting the subject into the realm of discussion without committing herself to any definite statement, or, in fact, really saying what it was. She could prosecute it now indirectly, on the lines of congenial contradiction of her husband. "I fully expected to be accused of interfering with what does not concern me. I am not surprised. My daughter's welfare is, it appears, to be of as little interest to me as it is to her father. Very well." "What do you wish me to do? Will you oblige me by telling me what it is you understand we are talking about?" A gathering storm of determination must be met, the Dragon decides, by a corresponding access of asperity on her part. She rises to the occasion. "I will tell you about what I do _not_ understand. But I do not expect to be listened to. I do _not_ understand how any father can remain in his library, engaged in work which cannot possibly be remunerative, while his eldest daughter contracts a disgraceful marriage with a social inferior." The irrelevance about remuneration was ill-judged. "I can postpone the Dictionary--if that will satisfy you--and go on with some articles for the Encyclopaedia, which pay very well, until after the ceremony. Is the date fixed?" "It is easy for you to affect stupidity, and to answer me with would-be witty evasions. But if you think to deter me from my duty--a mother's duty--by such pitiful expedients you are making a great mistake. You make my task harder to me, Septimus, but you do not discourage me. You know as well as I do--although you choose to affect the contrary--that what I am saying does not relate to any existing circumstances, but only to what may come about if you persist in neglecting your duty to your family. I came into this room to ask you to exercise your authority with your daughter Laetitia, or if not your authority--for she is over twenty-one--your influence. But I see that I shall get no help. It is, however, what I expected--no more and no less." And the skirts rustle with an intention of getting up and going away injured.