That is the kind of man I am, hard and vindictive and selfish to the core: the man whom you have idealised, whom you have put on a pedestal all these years." "I have known always the kind of man you were," she said steadily.

"I never idealised you, as you call it.

I loved you knowing the worst of you.

Otherwise my love could not have endured through.

A foolish idealism would have perished long ago." "And then I come down here, on a sudden despicable impulse, intending to use you as a weapon to strike her with, not that she is worth striking, poor feeble pretty toy.