There's always someone willing to believe malicious rumours.

Cortez looked like someone newly in love, the way only twenty-four-year-olds can look.

As the situation developed, the futility of attempting suicide in the middle of a hospital became apparent.

She's married. I'm more a friend and occasional lover.

I have a truly marvellous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.

She had been sharing a house with him for a week, and he had not once flirted with her. He had worked with her, asked her opinion, slapped her on the knuckles figuratively speaking when she was on the wrong track, and acknowledged that she was right when she corrected him. Dammit, he had treated her like a human being.

What irritated her most was that they kept brushing off her arguments with patronizing smiles, making her feel like a teenager being quizzed on her homework. Without actually uttering a single inappropriate word, they displayed towards her an attitude that was so antediluvian it was almost comical. You shouldn't worry your pretty head over complex matters, little girl.