"You refer to the Prince Regent? But I was thinking only of moral grandeur."
"True. All else, if one may say so without disloyalty, is but skin-deep."
"Superficial."
"Thank you, the expression is preferable, and I ask your leave to substitute it."
"Solomon, my kinsman, is the noblest of men."
"And you, Miss Marty, the best of women!" cried the Doctor, taking fire and a sip of the Fra Angelico together, and gulping the latter down heroically. "I drink to you; nay, if I dared, I would go even farther—
"No, no, I beg of you!" Her eyes, downcast before this sudden assault, let fall two happy tears, but a feeble gesture of the hand besought his mercy. "Let us talk of him," she went on breathlessly. "His elevation of character—"
"If he were to marry, now?" the Doctor suggested. "Have you thought of that?"
"Sometimes," she admitted, with a flutter of the breath, which sounded almost like a sigh.
"It would serve to perpetuate—"