NAPOLEON. Need that stop you?
LADY. Well, it is this. I adore a man who is not afraid
to be mean and selfish.
NAPOLEON (indignantly). I am neither mean nor selfish.
LADY. Oh, you don't appreciate yourself. Besides, I don't really
mean meanness and selfishness.
NAPOLEON. Thank you. I thought perhaps you did.
LADY. Well, of course I do. But what I mean is a certain strong
simplicity about you.
NAPOLEON. That's better.
LADY. You didn't want to read the letters; but you were curious
about what was in them. So you went into the garden and read them
when no one was looking, and then came back and pretended you
hadn't. That's the meanest thing I ever knew any man do; but it
exactly fulfilled your purpose; and so you weren't a bit afraid
or ashamed to do it.
NAPOLEON (abruptly). Where did you pick up all these vulgar
scruples--this (with contemptuous emphasis) conscience of yours?
I took you for a lady--an aristocrat. Was your grandfather a
shopkeeper, pray?
LADY. No: he was an Englishman.
NAPOLEON. That accounts for it. The English are a nation of
shopkeepers. Now I understand why you've beaten me.
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