Edith Nesbit

“ Betty felt young, school-girlish, awkward in the presence of this love—so different from her own timid dreams. The emotion of the other woman had softened her.
"I don't know," she said.
"If you don't know, you don't love him.—At least don't see him till you're sure. You'll do that? As long as he's not married to anyone, there's just a chance that he may love me again. Won't you have pity? Won't you go away like that sensible young man Temple? Mr. Vernon told me he was going into the country to decide which of the two women he likes best is the one he really likes best! ”

“ But Betty declined to try a Pole or a German.
What she wanted to do was to persuade herself that she liked Temple as much as she liked Vernon, and, further, that she did not care a straw for either.
Of course it is very wrong indeed to talk pleasantly with a young man when you think you know that he might, just possibly, be falling in love with you. ”

“ Betty's heart gave a jump.
"He seems to have been very sure of me," she said loftily.
"No, no; he's not a hairdresser's apprentice—to tell one woman that he's sure of another. He said: 'I mean to marry Miss Desmond if she'll have me.'"
"How kind of him!" ”

“ You're a girl in thousand. Look here, my dear: I'm not blind. Don't think I don't value what you're doing. You cared for him in England a little,—and you care a little now. And everything I've said tonight has hurt you hatefully. ”

“ You're very young; you'll find someone else, a better man. He's not a good man. There's a girl at Montmartre at this very moment—a girl he's set up in a restaurant. He goes to see her. You'd never stand that sort of thing. ”