Miss Ramsey: "And disgusting. A married man, that way! I don't see any comparison with Mr. Ashley."
Miss Garnett: "No, there really isn't any. Emily has never asked you to give him up. And besides, Peg Woffington really liked him a little—loved him, in fact."
Miss Ramsey: "And I don't like Mr. Ashley at all. Of course I respect him—and I admire his intellect; there's no question about his being handsome; but I have never thought of him for a moment in any other way; and now I can't even respect him."
Miss Garnett: "Nobody could. I'm sure Emily would be welcome to him as far as I was concerned. But he has never been about with me so much as he has with you, and I don't wonder you feel indignant."
Miss Ramsey, coldly: "I don't feel indignant. I wish to be just."
Miss Garnett: "Yes, that is what I mean. And poor Emily is so uninteresting! In the play that Kentucky Summers does, she is perfectly fascinating at first, and you can see why the poor girl's fiancé should be so taken with her. But I'm sure no one could say you had ever given Mr. Ashley the least encouragement. It would be pure justice on your part. I think you are grand! I shall always be proud of knowing what you were going to do."
Miss Ramsey, after some moments of snubbing intention: "I don't know what I am going to do myself, yet. Or how. What was that play? I never heard of it."
Miss Garnett: "I don't remember distinctly, but it was about a young man who falls in love with her, when he's engaged to another girl, and she determines, as soon as she finds it out, to disgust him, so that he will go back to the other girl, don't you know."
Miss Ramsey: "That sounds rather more practical than the Peg Woffington plan. What does she do?"
Miss Garnett: "Nothing you'd like to do."