Link after link he has broken with his own world; his master-vice holds him faster, closer, more absolutely, than hell ever held a lost soul!" "Grace, I cannot endure--" "You must! Are you trying to drug your silly self with romance so you won't recognise truth when you see it?
Are you drifting back into old impulses, unreasoning whims of caprice?
Have you forgotten what I know of you, and what you know of yourself?
Is the taint of your transmitted inheritance beginning to show in you--the one woman of your race who is fashioned to withstand it and stamp it out ?" "I am mistress of my emotions," said Sylvia, flushing.
"Then suppress them," retorted Grace Ferrall hotly, "before they begin to bully you.

There was no earthly reason for you to talk to Stephen.
No disinterested impulse moved you.

It was a sheer perverse, sentimental restlessness--the delicate, meddlesome deviltry of your race.

And if that poison is in you, it's well for you to know it." "It is in me," said Sylvia, staring at the fire.
"Then you know what to do for it." "No, I don't." "Well, I do," said Grace decisively; "and the sooner you marry Howard and intrench yourself behind your pride, the better off you'll be.
That's where, fortunately enough, you differ from your ancestors; you are unable to understand marital treachery.

Otherwise you'd make it lively for us all." "It is true," said Sylvia deliberately, "that I could not be treacherous to anybody.