Like lightning, too, it shatters, sometimes, where there is resistance." "Do you mean, Mr.Siward, that heredity is an excuse for moral weakness ?" "I don't know.

Those inheriting nothing of evil say it is no excuse." "It is no excuse." "You speak with authority," he said.
"With more than you are aware of," she murmured, not meaning to say it.
She stood up impulsively, her fresh face turned to the distant house, her rounded young figure poised in relief against the sky.
"Inherited or not, idleness, procrastination, are my besetting sins.
Can't you suggest the remedy, Mr.Siward ?" "But they are only the thieves of Time; and we kill the poor old gentleman." "Leagued assassins," she repeated pensively.
Her gown had caught on the cliff briers; he knelt to release it, she looking down, noting an ugly tear in the fabric.
"Payment for my iniquities--the first instalment," she said, still looking down over his shoulder and watching his efforts to release her.
"Thank you, Mr.Siward.I think we ought to start, don't you ?" He straightened up, smiling, awaiting her further pleasure.

Her pleasure being capricious, she seated herself again, saying: "What I meant to say was this: evils that spring from heredity are no excuse for misconduct in people of our sort.

Environment, not heredity, counts.

And it's our business, who have every chance in the world, to make good!" He looked down, amused at the piquant incongruity of voice and vernacular.
"What time is it ?" she asked irrelevantly.
He glanced at his watch.