"I shall be delighted. She is taller than yourself, and dark. Her hair is like a dusky cloud of black, and it ripples off her brow and over her little ears in a most damnably alluring fashion. Her eyes are brown, but there are lights in them that are purest amber, and yet they are dark and velvety—"
My lady had recourse to the smelling-bottle.
"But I perceive I weary you. A man in love, my dear Lavinia—"
She was up again at that.
"In love? You? Nonsense! Nonsense! Nonsense! You do not know what the word means. You are like a—like a fish, with no more of love in you than a fish, and no more heart than a fish, and—"
"Spare me the rest, I beg. I am very clammy, I make no doubt, but you will at least accord me more brain than a fish?"
"Oh, you have brain enough!" she raged. "Brain for evil! I grant you that!"
"It is really very kind of you—"
"The passion you feel now is not love. It is—it is—"
"Your pardon, my dear, but at the present moment I am singularly devoid of all strenuous emotions, so your remark is—"