“Its nothing,' said Horace quietly, 'but if you can think of any nicer way of a man killing himself than taking a risk for you, why that's the way I want to die.”

“I'm sorry I was short with him--but I don't like a man to approach me telling me it for my sake."Maybe it was," said Wylie"It's poor technique.""I'd all for it," said Wylie. "I'm vain as a woman. If anybody pretends to be interested in me, I'll ask for more. I like advice."Stahr shook his head distastefully. Wylie kept on ribbing him--he was one of those to whom this privilege was permitted. "You fall for some kinds of flattery," he said. "this 'little Napoleon stuff.'""It makes me sick," said Stahr, "but it's not as bad as some man trying to help you.""If you don't like advice, why do you pay me?""That's a question of merchandise," said Stahr. "I'm a merchant. I want to buy what's in your mind.""You're no merchant," said Wylie. "I knew a lot of them when I was a publicity man, and I agree with Charles Francis Adams.""What did he say?""He knew them all--Gould, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Astor--and he said there wasn't one he'd care to meet again in the hereafter. Well--they haven't improved since then, and that's why I say you're no merchant.""Adams was probably a sourbelly," said Stahr. "He wanted to be head man himself, but he didn't have the judgement or else the character." "He had brains," said Wylie rather tartly."It takes more than brains. You writers and artists poop out and get all mixed up, and somebody has to come in and straighten you out." He shrugged his shoulders. "You seem to take things so personally, hating people and worshipping them--always thinking people are so important-especially yourselves. You just ask to be kicked around. I like people and I like them to like me, but I wear my heart where God put it--on the inside.”

“How I feel is that if I wanted anything I'd take it. That's what I've always thought all my life. But it happens that I want you, and so I just haven't room for any other desires.”

“No," interrupted Marcia emphatically. "And you're a sweet boy. Come here and kiss me."Horace stopped quickly in front of her."Why do you want me to kiss you?" he asked intently. "Do you just go round kissing people?""Why, yes," admitted Marcia, unruffled. "'At's all life is. Just going around kissing people.”

“You're a rotten driver,' I protested. 'Either you ought to be more careful or you oughtn't to drive at all.''I am careful.''No, you're not.''Well, other people are,' she said lightly.'What's that got to do with it?''They'll keep out of my way,' she insisted. 'It takes two to make an accident.''Suppose you met somebody just as careless as yourself.''I hope I never will,' she answered. 'I hate careless people. That's why I like you.'Her grey, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her.”

“Under the stars,' she repeated. 'I never noticed the stars before. I always thought of them as great big diamonds that belonged to someone. Now they frighten me. They make me feel that it was all a dream, all my youth.'It was a dream,' said John quietly. 'Everybody's youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.'How pleasant then to be insane!'So I'm told,' said John gloomily. 'I don't know any longer. At any rate, let us love for a while, for a year or so, you and me. That's a form of divine drunkenness that we can all try. There are only diamonds in the whole world, diamonds and perhaps the shabby gift of disillusion. Well, I have that last and I will make the usual nothing of it.”

“I want you to take a red-hot bath as hot as you can bear it, and just relax your nerves. You can read in the tub if you wish.”