"My envy's not dangerous; it wouldn't hurt a mouse.I don't want to destroy the people—I only want to be them. You see it would destroy only myself."
"You'd like to be the Pope?" said Isabel.
"I should love it—but I should have gone in for it earlier. But why"—Osmond reverted—"do you speak of your friend as poor?"
"Women—when they are very, very good sometimes pity men after they've hurt them; that's their great way of showing kindness," said Ralph, joining in the conversation for the first time and with a cynicism so transparently ingenious as to be virtually innocent.