"I am afraid, Marcelle, I have been too egotistical, too much concerned about myself, I mean, and far too regardless of others.
I have allowed Mr.Curtis to place himself in a dreadful position----" "I'm sure, miladi, he doesn't think so," interrupted Marcelle breathlessly.
"That is the worst feature of it, to my thinking.

He is making all the sacrifice." "What! To get a wife like you, miladi!" "I am _not_ his wife." "Well, you are not married like folk who go away for a honeymoon and find rice in their clothes every day for a week, but Mr.Curtis says, miladi, that you are his wife right enough in the eyes of the law, and I'm sure he admires you immensely already, so there's no telling----" "Marcelle, do you imagine for one single instant that I would really marry any man who took me as a favor, who conferred an obligation on me, who came to my assistance in a moment of despair ?" "No, miladi, not if he thought those things.

But I have a sort of notion that Mr.Curtis would hurt any other man who suggested any of them, and it is easy to see by the very way he looks at you----" "Oh, have pity, and don't harp on that string! I can be nothing to him.

You mistake his kindness for something which is so utterly impossible that it almost drives me to hysteria to hear it even spoken of." Marcelle knew better.

In some recess of her own acute mind she felt that Lady Hermione's heightened color and shining eyes were due to just that wild and irresponsible conceit which they were debating.