“I must apologize for these damned entrances,’ said Francis Crawford of Lymond. ‘I feel Tom here never knows if he should send for a bishop or start a round of applause.”

“To save our friends’ nerves, I suggest we meet on a plane of brutal courtesy. It need not interfere with our mutual distrust.” -Francis Crawford of Lymond”

“Did I ever tell you,’ said Lymond pausing on the afterthought, on his way to the flap, ‘that that aunt of mine once hatched an egg?’ He paused, deep in thought, and walked slowly to the door before turning again. His lordship of Aubigny, staring after the vanishing form of his brother, received the full splendour of Lymond’s smile. ‘It was a cuckoo,’ said Francis Crawford prosaically, and followed Lennox out.”

“What’s wrong? Has Francis been rude? Then you must try to overlook it. I know you wouldn’t think so, but he is thoroughly upset by Tom Erskine’s death; and when Francis is troubled he doesn’t show it, he just goes and makes life wretched for somebody.”

“I wish to make my fortune with you.’ ‘Well, you can forget about that, for a start,’ said Francis Crawford. ‘And if your place in Paradise has been written, then for God’s sake hang on to it. Because we’re going in the opposite direction.”

“Arrested for the second, whether in admiration for Lord d’Aubigny’s inventiveness or in a kind of silent snort of hysteria at the prodigies expected of him—a condition, O’LiamRoe recognized, to which Lymond was all too prone—Francis Crawford was off guard for the one moment that mattered.”