"I assure you, I don't always know which is my true self, and which is my false."
"Don't you—really?"
Mervyn laughed.
"If you put the question in that style—but after all, you are the first to suggest the idea."
"It is so easy to see. Your sister would say the same."
"Emmeline! She looks upon me as the most hopelessly frivolous of mortals."
"But—"
"I assure you she does. And as for Edred—"
"He is a Clergyman. He has to live a life apart."
"He is the best fellow I know," said Mervyn, with unexpected warmth, instantly relapsing into a tone of indifference. "Ready to sacrifice his life any day for the veriest riff-raff of the streets. He and Em can take nothing lightly. It's partly constitution,—not all principle. I am of different make, and I simply can't go through existence as they do. I should expire of dulness in a fortnight. If ever I do sacrifice myself for anybody, I shall do it with a joke—not at all with the correct air of dignity and martyrdom. It's a thousand pities Em can't be tied to a stake. She would do it so awfully well, and enjoy it any amount."