“Adeline was really rather charming, she always had a man in her life, but it never worked out: either they were nice but she didn't find them very exciting; or they were exciting but she didn't find them particularly nice, or they were neither nice nor exciting and she wondered why she was with them at all. She found a way of making the exciting men nicer and that was by leaving them. But then, they weren't exciting anymore either.”

“She didn't know if this excitement was fueled by her ambition to find out something that nobody else knew. Or by the anticipation of finding out.”

“Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.”

“She asked if I found what she was telling me very exciting, and I managed to yelp out “very” while yawning.”

“She closed her eyes, dark-lidded, dark shadows beneath them; she really was older, not the glancing-eyed girl I had fallen in love with but no less beautiful for that; beautiful now in a way that less excited my senses than tore at my very heart.”

“I could see that she was eager to please and impress me, and I was excited to see someone so excited to try to excite me. In all the excitement I forgot where I was, who I was, and why I was trying to kill her.”