But she said, and with full lucidity, something quite other: it could give itself a little the air, still, of a triumph over his coarseness.

"By acting, immediately with the blind resentment with which, in her place, ninety-nine women out of a hundred would act; and by so making Mr.Verver, in turn, act with the same natural passion, the passion of ninety-nine men out of a hundred.
They've only to agree about me," the poor lady said; "they've only to feel at one over it, feel bitterly practised upon, cheated and injured; they've only to denounce me to each other as false and infamous, for me to be quite irretrievably dished.

Of course it's I who have been, and who continue to be, cheated--cheated by the Prince and Charlotte; but they're not obliged to give me the benefit of that, or to give either of us the benefit of anything.

They'll be within their rights to lump us all together as a false, cruel, conspiring crew, and, if they can find the right facts to support them, get rid of us root and branch." This, on each occasion, put the matter so at the worst that repetition even scarce controlled the hot flush with which she was compelled to see the parts of the whole history, all its ugly consistency and its temporary gloss, hang together.

She enjoyed, invariably, the sense of making her danger present, of making it real, to her husband, and of his almost turning pale, when their eyes met, at this possibility of their compromised state and their shared discredit.