"My beloved girl, those tears inspire me with hope. If you were indifferent you would not weep."
"I weep for the death of our friendship," she answered sorrowfully.
"You should smile at the birth of our love. Great Heaven! what is there to stand between us and consummate bliss?"
"Your own resolve, my lord. You are determined to take no second wife; and I am determined to be no man's mistress. Be sure that in all our friendship I never thought of marriage, nor of courtship—I never angled for a noble husband. But when you profess yourself my lover, I must needs give you a plain answer."
"Tonia, surely your soul can rise above trivial prejudices! You who have boldly avowed your scorn of Churchmen and their creeds, who have neither hope of heaven nor fear of hell, can you think the tie between a man and woman who love as we do—yes, dearest, I protest you love me—can you believe that bond more sacred for being mumbled by a priest, or stronger for being scrawled in a parish register? By Heaven, I thought you had a spirit too lofty for vulgar superstitions!"
"There is one superstition I shall ever hold by—the belief that there are honest women in the world."
"Pshaw, child! Be but true to the man who adores you, and you will be the honestest of your sex. Fidelity to her lover is honour in woman; and she is the more virtuous who is constant without being bound. Nance Oldfield, the honestest woman I ever knew, never wore a wedding-ring."
"I think, sir," she began in a low and earnest voice that thrilled him, "there are two kinds of women—those who can suffer a life of shame, and those who cannot."
"Say rather, madam, that there are women with hearts and women without. You are of the latter species. Under the exquisite lines of the bosom I worship nature has placed a block of ice instead of a heart."
A street cry went wailing by like a dirge, "Strawberries, ripe strawberries. Who'll buy my strawberries?"