“It had been too much for Edith to take and she had gone to her room so that her nieces wouldn't see her cry anymore.”

“She felt so much aware of her own beauty it seemed inconceivable that everybody else wouldn't notice the difference too.”

“She had had no idea what it would do to her seeing him in a suit.”

“Though her emotions had not deviated from a jittery frailty she knew that in her own room she could at least attempt sleep and that if she dreamed she might then finally be with Henry.”

“It had been an awful thing to lose Henry the first time, to matrimony, but to discover what a false front he was capable of was another kind of blow, and it had left her almost speechless. Then there was the fury with herself—for she had known what Henry’s love was, and still she had gone back to suffer a little more at his hands.”

“Her heart the damned thing had begun to race and she only hoped that the rapid inflation and deflation of her chest wasn't visible beneath her fitted bodice.”

“Her life, she realized, had all the charm of a steel trap.”