"How could I, after that? And if I had, he'd only have kept away."
"You should have let him go first and then gone after him. You should have turned up suddenly, in wonderful clothes, looking cheerful and beautiful. So that you wiped out the memory he funked. As it is you've left him nothing else to think of."
"I daresay that's what I should have done. But it's too late. I can't do it now."
"I'm not so sure."
"What, go after Jerrold? Hunt him down? Dress up and scheme to make him marry me?"
"Yes. Yes. Yes."
"Eliot, you know I couldn't."
"You said once you'd commit a crime for anybody you cared about."
"A crime, yes. But not that. I'd rather die."
"You're too fastidious. It's only the unscrupulous people who get what they want in this world. They know what they want and go for it. They stamp on everything and everybody that gets in their way."