“Under cover of her silence he pressed her arm closely to his side; and, as they stood at the hotel door, he felt that they had escaped from their lives and duties, escaped from home and friends and run away together with wild and radiant hearts to a new adventure.”

“Michael Robartes remembers forgotten beauty and, when his arms wrap her round, he presses in his arms the loveliness which has long faded from the world. Not this. Not at all. I desire to press in my arms the loveliness which has not yet come into the world.”

“The end he had been born to serve yet did not see had led him to escape by an unseen path and now it beckoned to him once more and a new adventure was about to be opened to him.”

“He found something mean in the pretty furniture which he had bought for his house on the hire system. Annie had chosen it herself and it reminded him of her. It too was prim and pretty. A dull resentment against his life awoke within him. Could he not escape from his little house? Was it too late for him to try to live bravely like Gallaher? Could he go to London? There was furniture still to be paid for. If he could only write a book and get it published, that might open the way for him.”

“Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.”

“For the years, he felt, had not quenched his soul, or hers.”

“A wave of yet more tender joy escaped from his heart, and went coursing in warm flood along his arteries. Like the tender fires of stars moments of their life together, that no one knew of, or would ever know of, broke upon and illumined his memory..”