No, Diana, I am not such a villain as the world may think me.

I am down in the dirt myself, and I'm used to it.

I won't drag a woman into the gutter just because I may happen to love her." There was a long silence after this--a silence during which Diana Paget sat looking down at the twinkling lights of the Kursaal.

Valentine lighted a second cigar and smoked it out, still in silence.

The clocks struck eleven as he threw the end of his cigar away; a tiny, luminous speck, which shot through the misty atmosphere below the balcony like a falling star.
"I may as well go and see how your father is getting on yonder," he said, as the spark of light vanished in the darkness below.