“He ought to have conceded that she was a flower not destined to open, a hothouse creation, no less beautiful, no less woth having, He should have admired her, praised her and, at the close of day, let her be.”

“Her form, though not so correct as her sister's, in having the advantage of height, was more striking; and her face was so lovely, that when in the common cant of praise she was called a beautiful girl, truth was less violently outraged than usually happens.”

“In those days, I didn't understand anything. I should have judged her according to her actions, not her words. She perfumed my planet and lit up my life. I should never have run away! I ought to have realized the tenderness underlying her silly pretensions. Flowers are so contradictory! But I was too young to know how to love her.”

“I ought not to have listened to her,' he confided to me one day. 'One never ought to listen to the flowers. One should simply look at them and breathe their fragrance. Mine perfumed all my planet. But I did not know how to take pleasure in all her grace.”

“She didn't have any intention of crying. The tears caught her by surprise. She knew she was behaving like a child, that she was being terribly foolish and emotional, but she didn't know how to stop herself."Judith?" His thumb brushed away one of the tears on her cheek. "Tell me why you're crying.""There weren't any flowers. Iain, there should have been flowers."Her voice had been so soft, he wasn't certain he understood her. "Flowers?" he asked."Where weren't there any flowers?"He waited for her to explain, but she stubbornly remained silent. He squeezed her."In the chapel.""What chapel?""The one you don't have," she answered.”

“He admired her for throwing off her aristocratic shackles -- his terms, that -- and making her own way in the world.He didn't realize that the truth was so much more complex, so much less impressive. She had less thrown than been thrown.”