I had not hitherto thought otherwise, myself; but now I experienced a perverse inclination to take the opposite side.

Was it so utterly impossible for a woman with this woman's record to make a good wife to some man yet?
I did not admit it for an instant; he would be a lucky man who won so healthy and so good a heart; thus I argued to myself with Mrs.Lascelles in my mind, and nobody else.

But Bob Evers was not a man, I was not sure that he was out of his teens, and to think of him was to think at once with Sir John Sankey and all the rest.

Yes, yes, it would be madness and suicide in such a youth; there could be no two opinions about that; and yet I felt indignant at the mildest expression of that which I myself could not deny.
Such was my somewhat chaotic state of mind when I had fled the billiard-room in my turn, and put on my overcoat and cap to commune with myself outside.

Nobody did justice to Mrs.Lascelles; it was terribly hard to do her justice; those were perhaps the ideas that were oftenest uppermost.