You see, a real woman must be a sportsman in her way of taking life as much as a man, and I maintain as a general proposition that it's the English lady--even one of your sneered-at "Lady Clara Vere de Vere" lot who makes the best front against battle, murder, and sudden death--if it has to come to that....

Just because,' he went on, 'though she might have been brought up in a castle and never have done a hand's turn that could be done for her, she's still got in her veins the blood of fighting ancestors--men who were ready to lay down their lives for God and King and country and their women's honour--and of women too who'd maybe held the stronghold that had been their husband's reward, and kept the flag flying, when to fail or flinch meant death or worse....

Why, look at your Lady Nithisdales and your Lady Russells and your Maria Theresas....' 'And your Joan of Arc--who was a peasant girl--and your Charlotte Corday....' 'Oh, you beat me there....

And I wasn't intending to fire off a speech anyway....

And anyway, Joan, its awful cheek to think I could ever get the sort of wife I want, but if I can't, I won't have one at all....
I'll have my money's worth.