Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

a tutor to have his thoughts interrupted by his pupils. Augustus:
You are not my tutor, sir. I am visiting your lesson by my free will.
Septimus: If you are so determined, my lord.
    (Thomasina laughs at that, the joke is for her, Augustus, not included, becomes angry.) Augustus: Your peace is nothing to me,
sir. You do not rule over me. Thomasina: (Admonishing) Augustus!
Septimus: I do not rule here, my lord. I inspire by reverence for learning and
the exaltation of knowledge whereby man may approach God. There will be a
shilling for the best cone and pyramid drawn in silence by a quarter to twelve at
the earliest. Augustus: You will not buy my silence for a shilling, sir.
What I
    know to tell is worth much more than that.
    (And throwing down his drawing book and pencil, he leaves
the room on his dignity, closing the door sharply. Pause. Septimus looks
enquiringly at THOMASINA.) Thomasina: I told him you kissed me. But he will
not tell. Septimus: When did I kiss you? Thomasina: What! Yesterday! Septimus:
Where? Thomasina: On the lips! Septimus: In which county? Thomasina: In the
hermitage, Septimus! Septimus: On the lips in the hermitage! That? That was not
a shilling kiss! I would not give sixpence to have it back. I had almost forgot
it already. Thomasina: Oh, cruel! Have you forgotten our compact? Septimus: God
save me! Our compact? Thomasina: To teach me to waltz! Sealed with a kiss, and a
second kiss due when I can dance like mama! Septimus: Ah yes. Indeed. We were
all waltzing like mice in
    London. Thomasina: I must waltz, Septimus! I will be despised
if I do not waltz! It is the most fashionable and gayest and boldest invention
conceivable—started in Germany!
    Septimus: Let them have the waltz, they cannot have the calculus.
    Thomasina: Mama has brought from town a whole book of
waltzes for the Broad wood, to play with Count Zelinsky.
    Septimus: I need not be told what I cannot but suffer. Count
Zelinsky banging on the Broadwood without relief has me reading in waltz time.
    Thomasina: Oh, stuff! What is your book?
    Septimus: A prize essay of the Scientific Academy in Paris.
The author deserves your indulgence, my lady, for you are his prophet.
    Thomasina: I? What does he write about? The waltz?
    Septimus: Yes. He demonstrates the equation of the propagation
of heat in a solid body. But in doing so he has discovered heresy—a natural
contradiction of Sir Isaac Newton.
    Thomasina: Oh!—he contradicts determinism?
    Septimus: No!... Well, perhaps. He shows that the atoms do
not go according to Newton.
    (Her interest has switched in the mercurial way characteristic
of her-she has crossed to take the book.)
    Thomasina: Let me see—oh! In French?
    Septimus: Yes. Paris is the capital of France.
    Thomasina: Show me where to read.
    (He takes the book back from her and finds the page for
her. Meanwhile, the piano music from the next room has doubled its notes and
its emotion.)
    Thomasina: Four-handed now! Mama is in love with the Count.
    Septimus: He is a Count in Poland. In Derbyshire he is a
piano tuner.
    (She has taken the book and is already immersed in it.
The piano music becomes rapidly more passionate, and then breaks off suddenly
in mid-phrase. There is an expressive silence next door which makes Septimus raise his eyes. It does not register with Thomasina. The silence
allows us to hear the distant regular thump of the steam engine which is to be
a topic. A few moments later LADY CROOM enters from the music room,
seeming surprised and slightly flustered to find the schoolroom occupied. She
collects herself, closing the door behind her. And remains watching, aimless
and discreet, as though not wanting to interrupt the lesson . Septimus has
stood, and she nods him back into his chair.
    CHLOfi, in Regency dress, enters from the door opposite
the music room. She takes in Valentine and Hannah but crosses without
pausing to the music room door.) CHLOfi: Oh!-where’s Gus? Valentine: Dunno.
    (CHLOfi goes into the music