Vittoria smiled nervously: "He is fibbing."

Marking the energy expended by Wilfrid in this art, the wiser woman said:
"Be on your guard the next two minutes he gets you alone."

"You see his devotion."

"Does he see his compensation? But he must help us at any hazard."

Adela broke away from her brother twice, and each time he fixed her to
the spot more imperiously. At last she ran into the hotel; she was
crying. "A bad economy of tears," said Laura, commenting on the dumb
scene, to soothe her savage impatience. "In another twenty minutes we
shall have the city gates locked."

They heard a window thrown up; Mr. Sedley's head came out, and peered at
the sky. Wilfrid said to Vittoria: "I can do nothing beyond what I have
done, I fear."

She thought it was a petition for thanks, but Laura knew better; she
said: "I see Count Lenkenstein on his way to the barracks."

Wilfrid bowed: "I may be able to serve you in that quarter."

He retired: whereupon Laura inquired how her friend could reasonably
suppose that a man would ever endure being thanked in public.

"I shall never understand and never care to understand them," said
Vittoria.