Edith Wharton

“ Don't you see how every single thing cries it out? Owen sees it--he saw it again just now! When I told him she'd relented, and would see him, he said: 'Is that Darrow's doing too?'"
Darrow took the onslaught in silence. He might have spoken, have summoned up the usual phrases of banter and denial; he was not even certain that they might not, for the moment, have served their purpose if he could have uttered them without being seen. But he was as conscious of what had happened to his face as if he had obeyed Anna's bidding and looked at himself in the glass. ”

“ Those poor young things that have to go about among us like machines--oh, if you knew how I pity them!"
"If you pity her, why not let her go?"
She stared. "Let her go--go for good, you mean? Is that the best you can say for her?"
"Let things take their course. After all, it's between herself and Owen."
"And you and me--and Effie, if Owen marries her, and I leave my child with them! Don't you see the impossibility of what you're asking? We're all bound together in this coil."
Darrow turned away with a groan. "Oh, let her go--let her go." ”

“ Darrow waited a moment; then he said slowly: "What you imagine's mere madness. She was at the theatre with me."
"With you?" He saw a tremor pass through her, but she controlled it instantly and faced him straight and motionless as a wounded creature in the moment before it feels its wound. "Why should you both have made a mystery of that?"
"I've told you the idea was not mine." He cast about. "She may have been afraid that Owen----"
"But that was not a reason for her asking you to tell me that you hardly knew her--that you hadn't even seen her for years." ”