Nourvady monologue (Act 2) — The Princess of Bagdad: A Play In Three Acts

Is it really a woman of your superiority who speaks of the proprieties of society? Are not women like you above all that? Was I to come delicately and hypocritically to offer your husband the sum he stood in need of? "Arrange your affairs, my dear friend; you can give me back that trifle when you are able." I should certainly have acted like that if I had not loved you; loving you, ought I to do it, that is to say, to speculate upon your gratitude, upon the impossibility of your husband discharging his debt, and upon fresh and unavoidable necessities? That is a course that would have been unworthy of him, of me, and of you. No, you know it well, the proprieties and dignity are nothing any longer, when passion or necessity predominates. Did your grandmother respect the dignity of her daughter when she gave her up to a prince?