“Stop it, she told herself. Buck up. Buck up. Things were going well. Very well. What did it matter what people thought? Robert was starting to relax. Those old women – who cared? They were as irrelevant as Polly herself was, and she was shown and told about her diminished status at every juncture.”

“Stop it, she told herself. Buck up. Buck up. Things were going well. Very well. What did it matter what people thought? Robert was starting to relax. Those old women – who cared? They were as irrelevant as Polly herself was, and she was shown and told about her diminished status at every juncture.”

— Alice Elliott Dark