Chapter 8 of 18 · 3'25"
The outrage isn't really about a party stunt. Old Larrabee sees David courting the chauffeur's daughter as a class betrayal: "No gentleman makes love to a servant in his mother's house." David answers with a bare "I love her," and Linus, of all people, tells the father to back off — then quietly keeps David behind.
Linus Takes David Aside
After the party, Oliver Larrabee tears into his son David for flirting with Sabrina, the chauffeur's daughter, right in the family house. He invokes ancestors who were pirates and slave traders to make the point that David is the worst Larrabee yet. David refuses to apologize. Linus steps in — seemingly on David's side.
The fight is about class, not romance. Oliver's line — "No gentleman makes love to a servant in his mother's house" — says the problem is where David did it and with whom, not whether he's sincere. David's answer, "I love her!", refuses the frame entirely; he won't debate propriety. The sharpest turn belongs to Linus. He tells his father, "I think David's old enough to live his own life," which sounds like loyalty — and then, once the father leaves, orders David to sit down and asks, "You want me to help you or don't you?" The man defending David's freedom is already folding him into a plan.
A1–C2 is the CEFR scale. Cards above the level you pick fade, and playback will not auto-pause on them.
“No gentleman makes love to a servant in his mother's house.”
It never raises its voice, yet the word gentleman quietly condemns everything David did.
Formal
“I'm telling you, Linus, this boy should be drummed out of the family!”
He reaches for a military punishment to describe a family scandal, which is harsher and funnier at once.
Informal
“- That's overdoing it. - I love her!”
The calm rebuke and the shouted confession sit side by side, and the jump is the whole scene.
Informal
“Well, I think David's old enough to live his own life.”
He does not argue about the girl at all; he simply hands David his adulthood back.
Neutral
“Next thing we know, he'll lean a ladder up against the garage wall and elope with the girl in the middle of the night.”
He paints an absurd elopement scene to mock the romance, and the picture does the scolding for him.
Informal
“You'll get rid of that girl immediately, do you understand?”
The order plus the tag question leaves no room to answer, which is exactly the point.
Formal
Up next · 09buy someone offThe scene: Linus Brings Sabrina ChampagneDavid flirted with Sabrina, the chauffeur's daughter, at a party in the family's own house. For Oliver it's not just bad manners — it crosses a class line and embarrasses the household.
On the surface, because David is old enough to choose his own life. But Linus is also steering things: once their father leaves, Linus keeps David back and asks if he wants help.
He's making a rhetorical point: even the Larrabees' pirates and slave traders never behaved as badly as David did tonight. It's sarcastic family history used as a scolding.
As David finally sits down to talk with Linus, he realizes he's been sitting on champagne glasses in his pocket and leaps up. It cuts the tension and ends the scene on a comic note.
The plastics merger. Linus has arranged David's engagement to Elizabeth Tyson, which the business deal depends on, so a romance with the chauffeur's daughter would wreck it.
