His light tone...jarred on her passionate desire to be understood. In her strange state of extra-lucidity, which gave her the sense of being already at the heart of the situation, it seemed incredible that anyone should think it necessary to linger in the conventional outskirts of word-play and passion.

--Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

His light tone...jarred on her passionate desire to be understood. In her strange state of extra-lucidity, which gave her the sense of being already at the heart of the situation, it seemed incredible that anyone should think it necessary to linger in the conventional outskirts of word-play and passion.

--Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth