by Henry James

“ Jordan went down with her guest to the door of the house. Here again the younger lingered, reverting, though three or four other remarks had on the way passed between them, to Captain Everard and Lady Bradeen. “Did you mean just now that if she hadn’t saved him, as you call it, she wouldn’t hold him so tight?”
“Well, I dare say.” Mrs. Jordan, on the doorstep, smiled with a reflexion that had come to her; she took one of her big bites of the brown gloom. “Men always dislike one when they’ve done one an injury.” ”

“ Jordan, however, was positive. “I beg your pardon. I happen to know.”
Her disciple faltered but an instant. “Do you mean through Mr. Drake? Do they tell him these things?”
“A good servant,” said Mrs. Jordan, now thoroughly superior and proportionately sententious, “doesn’t need to be told! Her ladyship saved—as a woman so often saves!—the man she loves.”
This time our heroine took longer to recover herself, but she found a voice at last. “Ah well—of course I don’t know! The great thing was that he got off. They seem then, in a manner,” she added, “to have done a great deal for each other.” ”

“ Distinguishing vaguely what the low parapet enclosed she stopped close to it and stood a while very intently, but perhaps still sightlessly, looking down on it. A policeman; while she remained, strolled past her ”