"If there's anything in it I shall understand it in the end. I'm not a fool."
"No, you're not a fool. I'll say that for you."
"Unless it's folly to be as fond of you as I am."
"Oh, no, that's not folly. You'll be fond of me just as long as I'm nice to look at; as long as it doesn't bore you to talk to me; as long as I don't give you any trouble."
"Good God! Why, look at the trouble you're giving me now."
"Yes, the trouble I'm giving you now, when I'm young and pretty and you can't have me. But when you have had me; when I'm tired out and ill and—and thin; will you be fool enough to be fond of me then?"
"You have been ill, you were ill last night, and—I've got over it."
"You never came near me when I was ill at Matlock. You call that giving me what Robert Lucy gives me? Robert has seen me when I've been as ugly as sin, when my eyes have been bunged up with crying. And it made no difference. He'll love me when I'm thin and ill and old. When I'm dead he'll love me."
He faced her passion as it flamed up before him, faced it with his cold, meditative smile.
"That's just what makes it such a beastly shame."