Gaudy Night (Lord Peter Wimsey, #12)

by Dorothy L. Sayers

Vane – I’ve no wish to pry impertinently into your affairs. Stop me if I’m saying too much. But we have talked a good deal about facing the facts. Isn’t it time you faced the facts about the man?’ ‘I have been facing one fact for some time,’ said Harriet, staring out with unseeing eyes into the quad, ‘and that is, that if I once gave way to Peter, I should go up like straw.’ ‘That,’ said Miss de Vine drily, ‘is moderately obvious. How often has he used that weapon against you?’ ‘Never,’ said Harriet, remembering the moments when he might have used it. ‘Never.’ ‘Then what are you afraid of? Yourself?’ ‘Isn’t this afternoon warning enough?’ ‘Perhaps. You have had the luck to come up against a very unselfish and a very honest man. He has done what you asked him without caring what it costs him and without shirking the issue. He hasn’t tried to disguise the facts or bias your judgment. You admit that, at any rate.’ ‘I suppose he realised how I should feel about it?’ ‘Realised it?’ said Miss de Vine, with a touch of irritation. ‘My dear girl, give him the credit for the brains he’s got. They are very good ones. He is painfully sensitive and far more intelligent than is good for him. But I really don’t think you can go on like this. You won’t break his patience or his control or his spirit; but you may break his health. He looks like a person pushed to the last verge of endurance.’ ‘He’s been rushing about and working very hard,’ said Harriet, defensively. ‘I shouldn’t be at all...