“While my scarcely controlled rage flew from my mouth in sentences I hoped would be, perhaps not then but perhaps later, like knives to her brain.”

“You must be excessively hungry, Mr. Merritt,” she saidgraciously. Mademoiselle would have been so proud of her.“Perhaps you are not a morning person?”He smiled, finally bringing his devastating sky bluemorning gaze fully upon her face.“I thought perhaps if I filled my mouth with biscuits, Imight keep my foot out of it for a while.”

“I decided to dub the room with the good chairs my lutery. Or perhaps my performatory. I would need a while to come up with something suitably pretentious.”

“I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains.”

“I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains.”

“There is a real-enough danger, I suppose, that sooner or later I'll bog down, perhaps disappear entirely, in my own methods, locutions, and mannerisms. On the whole, though, I'm very hopeful.”