“I'm no good at being good.”

“That man," she said in low but still audible tones, "is an idiot.""Yes, madam, but he's all we've got.""I may be stupid," Rupert said, "but I'm irresistibly attractive.""Good grief, conceited too," she muttered."And being a great, dumb ox," he went on, "I'm wonderfully easy to manage."She paused and turned to Beechey. "Are you sure there's no one else?”

“I expected a good deal more from you," Marcelline said, "You bungled it.""Yes," he said. "What else could I do? I was asking the wrong woman to marry me.”

“Good God!" she cried. She rolled off him, tugging down her clothing. "Are you mad?"He blinked and dragged in air. "Well, yes," he said thickly. "Lust does that to a man.""You thought we could-you would-do...that? In public?"I wasn't thinking about where we were."Her eyes widened."I'm a man," he said with what he was sure must be, in the circumstances, saintly patience. "I can do one or the other. Lovemaking or thinking. But not both at the same time.”

“With the world securely in order, Dain was able to devote the leisurely bath time to editing his mental dictionary. He removed his wife from the general category labeled "Females" and gave her a section of her own. He made a note that she didn't find him revolting, and proposed several explanations: (a) bad eyesight and faulty hearing, (b)a defect in a portion of her otherwise sound intellect, (c) an inherited Trent eccentricity, or (d) an act of God. Since the Almighty had not done him a single act of kindness in at least twenty-five years, Dain thought it was about bloody time, but he thanked his Heavenly Father all the same, and promised to be as good as he was capable of being.”

“Oh, good,” he muttered. “We’re going to discuss it now.”“No discussion,” she said. Her mind was quite clear now, as though a fire had blazed through it, burning away all confusion. “It’s perfectly simple. No One MustEver Know.”He came up onto one elbow and looked at her. “Do you know,” he said, “I can hear those five words in italics. Capitalized.”

“We're of one mind, Grenville and I, and the mind is hers, on account of my being a man and not having one.”