“My dear sweet girl. You take on so much. You feel things so deeply. But you will be happy, my darling. You will shine.”

“So young and yet already carrying a great burden on her shoulders. Do not worry, my dear, I will make sure you can protect yourself and others. Because you are our hope … sweet, darling … Arima.”

“Read. As much as you can. As deeply and widely and nourishingly and ­irritatingly as you can. And the good things will make you remember them, so you won't need to take notes.”

“If you weren't here I wouldn't see it," said Ingram, firmly believing it in the face of the fact that nothing ever escaped his acute vision. "I see all this only through you. You are my eyes. Without you I go blind, I grope about with the light gone out. You don't know what you are to me, you little shining crystal thing—you don't begin to realise it, my dear, my dear sweet Found-at-Last.”

“Well, my dear, take heart. Some day, I will kiss you and you will like it. But not now, so I beg you not to be too impatient.”

“My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!”