"Can't you see I like risks? I always have liked risks. When we were children my brothers and I were always trying to see just how near we could go to breaking our necks."
"I know you've courage enough for anything. But that was rather a different sort of risk."
"No. No. There are no different sorts of risk. All intense moments of
danger are the same. It's always the same feeling. I don't know whether
I've courage or not, but I do know that when danger comes you don't care.
You're hoisted up above caring."
"You do care, Mary."
"About my 'reputation '? You wouldn't like to think I didn't care about it…. Of course, I care frightfully. If I didn't, where's the risk?"
"I hate your having to take it all. I don't risk anything."
"I wish you did. Then you'd be happier. Poor Richard—so safe in his man's world…. You can be sorry about that, if you like. But not about me. I shall never be sorry. Nothing in this world can make me sorry…. I shouldn't like Mamma to know about it. But even Mamma couldn't make me sorry…. I've always been happy about the things that matter, the real things. I hate people who sneak and snivel about real things…. People who have doubts about God and don't like them and snivel. I had doubts about God once, and they made me so happy I could hardly bear it…. Mamma couldn't bear it making me happy. She wouldn't have minded half so much if I had been sorry and snivelled. She wouldn't mind so much if I was sorry and snivelled about this."
"You said you weren't going to think about your mother."
"I'm not thinking about her. I'm thinking about how happy I have been and am and shall be."
Even thinking about Mamma couldn't hurt you now. Nothing could hurt the happiness you shared with Richard. What it was now it would always be. Pure and remorseless.