How quickly expectations can change one’s behavior, she thought. - David D. Levine

“The loan of a jacket is little hardship,” Fox replied mildly. “I retain my shirt, waistcoat, trousers, and much else besides. Truly the vast difference in the quantity of fabric allocated to fashionable men and women is inexplicable.

If only things were not as they are, she reflected, they would certainly be different.

His eyes, as she had noted before, betrayed a keen intelligence but no emotion whatsoever—they might have been the eyes of some ancient tortoise, one who had seen a thousand empires rise and fall and cared nothing for any of them.