“But I do love Richard. I do, I do, yet⁠—”

“Exactly. ‘Yet!’ The ‘grand passion’ has not yet touched you, my dear, and you are quite self-absorbed.”

“Self-absorbed! Those are hard words.”

“But not too hard for the case. You think solely of yourself, your own pleasure, your own character, your own feelings. If you could cast yourself into the background a little, you would be less excitable and considerably less discontented.”

“How dare you, Tracy! Pray, what of you? Are you so selfless?”

“Not at all. I am precisely the same. I was merely suggesting that you might be happier an you could depose ‘self.’ ”

“You had best do the same yourself!”