Lucia's face quivered like a pale flame.
"I don't believe it. I don't believe it for a moment."
"It's absurd to say you don't believe what everybody knows, and what anybody here can tell you."
"I never heard a word against him here. Ask Sophie She's known him for five years. Besides, I know him. That's enough."
"Lucy, when you once get hold of an idea you're blind to everything outside it."
"I take after my family in that. But no, I'm not blind. He may have gone wrong once, at some time—but never, no, I'm sure of it, since I knew him."
"Still, when a man has once lived that sort of life, the coarseness must remain."
"Coarseness? There isn't any refinement, any gentleness he isn't capable of. He's fine through and through. Stay and meet him, Edith, and see for yourself."
"I have met him."
"And yet you can't see?"