I. A. R. Wylie

“ As if the submarine weren't bad enough! If only Fenton were more like you! You're never serious, are you?”
“Sometimes—very.”
“Oh, well, but not in that steam-roller fashion of Fenton's. Sometimes I feel as if he would crush me to death under it all.”
“He's ambitious—for you perhaps,” Delisle suggested slowly.
“Not for me. I don't want anything. We have money enough.”
“Money is not everything. I know that.”
She laughed charmingly.
“Do you? And you have such a lot!”
“I have no one to make happy with it, and that's all it's of any good for.”
“Oh, Oscar, don't be trite! ”

“ Rochefort considered his white hand thoughtfully.
“Rather a risk, that, is it not? The expert might be unfriendly or stupid; experts occasionally are, you know—and, above all, an official expert, who knows that his business is to minimize the value of everything but himself!”
“The English government is aware that I am not out for reward.”
“Pure patriotism, eh?” Villiers made no answer, and the Frenchman smiled. “Well, there is another cause for congratulation. Another man, less fortunate, might have to be a little less patriotic.” ”

“ One could build all sorts of romances with her face in mind. She loves life, does she not? One can see that in every movement.”
“You see a great many things, captain,” Raeburn retorted tartly.
“I have learned to read faces,” Rochefort explained, with a return of his fleeting, enigmatic smile. “They interest me almost as much as aëroplanes. Now there is the officer with whom Madame Villiers is dancing—he interests me very much. Strength and weakness, eh? Strength in the jaw and weakness in the mouth—a very common phenomenon. ”