Crocodile on the Sandbank (Amelia Peabody, #1)

by Elizabeth Peters

Our meeting was fortuitous, but fortunate.

But why should any independent, intelligent female choose to subject herself to the whims and tyrannies of a husband? I assure you, I have yet to meet a man as sensible as myself!”

He might marry her and then spend the rest of his life nobly forgiving her. Nothing can be more infuriating than being forgiven over and over again.

But that was Evelyn’s weakness. She was too kind, and too truthful. Both, I have found, are inconvenient character traits.

I thought I would not sleep. My mind was in a state of confusion such as I seldom permit in that organ; but on this occasion the methods I normally apply to resolve it were not effective.

There is nothing more abominable than being in a state of bodily exhaustion and mental irritation; I was too lethargic to get up and seek some means of occupying my mind, but I was too uneasy to fall asleep.