"I am bored; and a person who is bored bores others."
"Let us bore ourselves together, Signora Dias. That will be diverting. I have always wished to bore myself with you, you know."
She shook her head, to forbid his referring to the past.
"Ah, you won't consent? You're very cruel."
She put her opera-glass to her eyes, and looked off across the course.
"If you're going to treat me as badly as this, you'd better send me away," he said, with some feeling.
"The stand is free to all the world," she answered, tormented by the thought that if her husband should come back, he might imagine that she was glad to talk with Caracciolo.
"You are a Domitian in woman's clothes," he cried. "Ah, you women! When you don't like a man you destroy him straightway."
She did not hear him; or, hearing, she did not understand.
"You are too high up for me," he went on. "To descend to my level would be impossible for you and unworthy of you. It's equally impossible for me to rise to yours."