"Better that than the usual insincerity in such cases of dislike. It gives me reason to hope that eventually I can win her friendship."
"Your kindness is more than I can ever repay!"
"You can by granting me a single favor."
"Indeed?" Mrs. Gantry raised her eyebrows in high arches.
"By receiving my friend as my friend."
"Ah! Had you not asked permission to bring him, he would not have been received at all."
"Not even as the man who saved your niece?"
"That is an obligation to be discharged by her father."
"I see. Very well, then. Regarding him simply as my friend, I ask you to consider that he is undergoing a most difficult, I may say, cruel test. He must overcome something that he has vainly fought for years—something that has crushed many of the greatest intellects the world has known."
"The more reason for me to save Genevieve from ruin. From what you say,
I imply that it is a hopeless case of degeneracy."