- Elizabeth Hemming: That girl must go.
- John Hemming: Oh, why?
- Elizabeth Hemming: Isn't it obvious?
- John Hemming: Seems perfectly adequate.
- Elizabeth Hemming: Hm Perfectly - for a brothel. Happens to be a boys' boarding school. Mildred should never have engaged her while I was away.
- John Hemming: Mildred's been with us for years. We can hardly dismiss her niece without a good reason.
- Elizabeth Hemming: Reason? Girl's a menace. This hotbed of masculine puberty.
- John Hemming: I'm sure Mildred meant well.
- Elizabeth Hemming: I asked her to get me a housemaid, not a budding sex symbol.
- John Hemming: Is that really why you want to get rid of her?
- Elizabeth Hemming: What other reason would I have?
- John Hemming: The reason that she looked upon me with a moment's kindness.
- Elizabeth Hemming: That's a rotten thing to say.
- John Hemming: I have to mark these exercise books. Better do it upstairs, my study's in chaos.
- Elizabeth Hemming: Stank of stale tobacco and mildewed books.
- John Hemming: Is that why you put the painters in? Or was it to deprive me of my only refuge?
- Elizabeth Hemming: Your refuge?
- [scoffs]
- Elizabeth Hemming: Alright, go on. Scuttle! Dodge the truth, as you always do.
- John Hemming: What truth?
- Elizabeth Hemming: Your failure! Seventeen years we've been at this school. Now we're trapped here for the rest of our lives and you don't even care. You've given up.
- John Hemming: So that's it. That's what this is all about. You've heard.
- Elizabeth Hemming: You've been passed over again. They're bringing in a headmaster from the outside and the first I hear about it is from others, in public.
- John Hemming: I'm sorry.
- Elizabeth Hemming: I was so sure you'd get it this time and everyone knew I was sure. And then you let me hear the news from them - junior masters' wives.
- John Hemming: I'm sorry.
- Elizabeth Hemming: Sorry? Sorry? Is that all you can say? My God! What kind of a creature are you?
- John Hemming: Elizabeth, may I go and mark my books now?
- Elizabeth Hemming: Oooh, mark your bloody books. It's about all you're good for.
- [the phone starts ringing]