DOCTOR. And to choose them a little stale. GEORGE. Why so? DOCTOR. Because at a certain age they have all paid their toll. The prettiest girl in the world can give all she has, not what she has no longer. That is what you will tell your sons. GEORGE. But do you mean that I can have children? DOCTOR. Certainly. GEORGE. Healthy ones? DOCTOR. Perfectly healthy. I repeat: if you take proper and reasonable care of yourself for the necessary length of time, you have little to fear. GEORGE. Is that certain? DOCTOR. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred. GEORGE. Then I shall be able to marry? DOCTOR. You will be able to marry. GEORGE. You’re not deceiving me, are you? You wouldn’t give me false hopes? You wouldn’t—How soon shall I be able to marry? DOCTOR. In three or four years. GEORGE. What, three or four years? Not before? DOCTOR. Not before. GEORGE. Why? Am I going to be ill all that time? You said just now— DOCTOR. The disease will no longer be dangerous to you yourself, but you will be dangerous to others. GEORGE. But, doctor, I am going to be married in a month! DOCTOR. Impossible. GEORGE. I can’t help it. The contract is all ready; the banns have been published. I have given my word. DOCTOR. Here’s a pretty patient! A moment ago you were feeling for your pistol: now you want to be married in a month! GEORGE. But I must! DOCTOR. I forbid you. GEORGE. You can’t mean that seriously. If this disease is not what I imagined and if I can be cured, I shan’t commit suicide. If I don’t kill myself, I must take up the ordinary course of my life. I must fulfill my engagements: I must be married. DOCTOR. No. GEORGE. If my engagement were broken off it would be absolutely disastrous. You talk of it like that because you don’t know. I didn’t want to get married. I have told you—I had almost a second family; the children adored me. It is my old aunt, who owns all the property, who has pushed on the match. Then my mother wants to see me ‘settled’ as she says. The only thing in the world she wants is to see her baby grandchildren, and she wonders twenty times a day whether she will live long enough. Since the question first came up she simply hasn’t thought of anything else; it’s the dream of her life. And then I tell you I have begun to adore Henriette. If I draw back now my mother would die of grief and I should be disinherited by my aunt. Even that isn’t all. You don’t know my father-in-law’s character! He is a man of regular high old principles; and he has a temper like the devil. What’s more, he simply worships his daughter. It would cost me dear, I can assure you. He would call me to account—I don’t know what would happen. So there are my mother’s health, my aunt’s fortune, my future, my honor, perhaps my life, all at stake. Besides, I tell you I have given my word. DOCTOR. You must take it back.