Leonard Merrick

“ Marriage is the end of your little story, so you take it for granted it must be the end of his. The more you love him, the sooner you bore him. You go bankrupt in the honeymoon—you're a back number to him before you've been married a month—he knows all your life, and all your mind, and all your moods. ”

“ He thought her the most fascinating woman he had ever met, and talked to her about the conditions of the English stage with considerable satisfaction to himself.
"What a dramatist your lordship would have made if you had not been a bishop!" she murmured, with rapt eyes.
"Oh—er—you are jesting," said the Bishop, asking for more.
"No, indeed—I mean it," returned the lady reverently. "You have what we call the 'sense of the theatre.' And it is so rare! You startled me just now—you know by intuition things that the professional dramatist needs years of experience to find out. ”

“ Were I a younger man, I might doubt the righteousness of owning that the attachment is mutual; but the years bring wisdom and at my age we see deeply. My duty is to help you, and I realise that I can help you only by a perfect candour. ”

“ And I should be foolish to ask so much—a moderately intelligent man is all that a woman like me has the right to expect. The Bishop is unfortunately very, very dull. Believe me, I have tried most conscientiously to be deceived by him. I used to read his Press notices and say, 'Look what the newspapers say about him—it must be true!' But I knew it wasn't. I used to listen to his sermons—there aren't many of them; they've been the same sermons for twenty years—and say, 'What lovely language, what noble thoughts! ”

“ But now, for the first time in his career, he was thrown into intimate association with a woman who had captivated those who were seeing life, and those who had seen it—and the Bishop of Westborough fell in love with her as violently as many wiser men had done before him. ”

“ But the theatre was one thing, and life was another. In real life it was preposterous of a person to seek an interview and plead for the return of a husband's heart; in real life it was impossible to return a heart, even if one wished to do it. ”

“ The Bishop of Westborough had seldom found himself in a more delicate position. Since Sweetbay objected so strenuously to its rector being a dramatist, Sweetbay was clearly no place for the rector; and it devolved upon his lordship to intimate the fact. But secretly his lordship was also guilty of dramatic authorship, and instalments of his comedy were even now in the hands of that accomplished actress, Miss Kitty Clarges. ”

“ Won't you sit down?"
For an instant the Bishop's wife hesitated. Then she sat at the extreme edge of a chair, and moistened her lips.
"My visit must appear very strange to you?"
"Most kind!" said Kitty Clarges. "How is his lordship getting on with his play? It'll soon be finished now, I suppose?"
"I daresay—I really don't know; I didn't come to talk about the play," Mrs. Meadows faltered; "I came because you might do more for me than anybody else alive! Miss Clarges, my husband is in love with you."
The start, the bewilderment in the eyes, was admirable. "My ... dear Mrs. Meadows?" ”

“ Now, though Kitty Clarges endeavoured to persuade herself by turns that Mrs. Meadows was a fool incapable of appreciating her husband, and that Mrs. Meadows was a diplomat scheming to disenchant her with him, both endeavours were unsuccessful. She could not think the woman an utter idiot, and still less was it possible to think her a genius. Kitty Clarges was less entranced by the Bishop in their next meeting. ”

“ Baker Barling that the parish of Sweetbay was unsuitable for him, and offered him instead a living which commended itself to the Barlings not at all. Indeed, Mrs. Baker Barling was so highly incensed by the removal, that the rector had on several occasions to say "My dear!" to her reprovingly.
The Bishop was young for a bishop. His classical features, and the dignity of his carriage, would have compelled attention even if he had been a mere man. ”

“ Women like me don't lose the man they want—we know how easy it is for him to leave us, and we take the trouble to keep him. It's you good women who are always being left; after you've caught the man, you think you've nothing more to do. ”