"I do not see why you should not return."
"And if I did what would come of it? In place of the seclusion of Dresden, there would be the seclusion of Portman Square or of Saulsby. Who would care to have me at their houses, or to come to mine? You know what a hazardous, chancy, short-lived thing is the fashion of a woman. With wealth, and wit, and social charm, and impudence, she may preserve it for some years, but when she has once lost it she can never recover it. I am as much lost to the people who did know me in London as though I had been buried for a century. A man makes himself really useful, but a woman can never do that."
"All those general rules mean nothing," said Phineas. "I should try it."
"No, Phineas. I know better than that. It would only be disappointment. I hardly think that after all you ever did understand when it was that I broke down utterly and marred my fortunes for ever."
"I know the day that did it."
"When I accepted him?"
"Of course it was. I know that, and so do you. There need be no secret between us."
"There need be no secret between us certainly,—and on my part there shall be none. On my part there has been none."
"Nor on mine."
"There has been nothing for you to tell,—since you blurted out your short story of love that day over the waterfall, when I tried so hard to stop you."