I have been constant, Venetia; your heart assures you, of that.  You are the only being in existence who exercises over me any influence; and the influence you possess is irresistible and eternal.  It springs from some deep and mysterious sympathy of blood which I cannot penetrate.  It can neither be increased nor diminished by time.  It is entirely independent of its action.  I pretend not to love you more at this moment than when I first saw you, when you entered the terrace-room at Cherbury and touched my cheek.  From that moment I was yours.  I declare to you, most solemnly I declare to you, that I know not what love is except to you.  The world has called me a libertine; the truth is, no other woman can command my spirit for an hour.  I see through them at a glance.  I read all their weakness, frivolity, vanity, affectation, as if they were touched by the revealing rod of Asmodeus.  You were born to be my bride.  Unite yourself with me, control my destiny, and my course shall be like the sun of yesterday; but reject me, reject me, and I devote all my energies to the infernal gods; I will pour my lava over the earth until all that remains of my fatal and exhausted nature is a black and barren cone surrounded by bitter desolation.’

‘Plantagenet; be calm!’

’I am perfectly calm, Venetia.  You talk to me of your sufferings.  What has occasioned them?  A struggle against nature.  Nature has now triumphed, and you are happy.  What necessity was there for all this misery that has fallen on your house?  Why is your father an exile?  Do not you think that if your mother had chosen to exert her influence she might have prevented the most fatal part of his career?  Undoubtedly despair impelled his actions as much as philosophy, though I give him credit for a pure and lofty spirit, to no man more.  But not a murmur against your mother from me.  She received my overtures of reconciliation last night with more than cordiality.  She is your mother, Venetia, and she once was mine.  Indeed, I love her; indeed, you would find that I would study her happiness.  For after all, sweet, is there another woman in existence better qualified to fill the position of my mother-in-law?  I could not behave unkindly to her; I could not treat her with neglect or harshness; not merely for the sake of her many admirable qualities, but from other considerations, Venetia, considerations we never can forget.  By heavens!  I love your mother; I do, indeed, Venetia!  I remember so many things; her last words to me when I went to Eton.  If she would only behave kindly to me, you would see what a son-in-law I should make.  You would be jealous, that you should, Venetia.  I can bear anything from you, Venetia, but, with others, I cannot forget who I am.  It makes me bitter to be treated as Lady Annabel treated me last year in London:  but a smile and a kind word and I recall all her maternal love; I do indeed, Venetia; last night when she was kind I could have kissed her!’