Madame X (1929)

Holmes Herbert: Noel

Photos 

Quotes 

• Floriot : Where in the name of heaven did you come from?

  Noel : Where am I from? America!

  Floriot : America? North or south?

  Noel : North, from the great New York.

  Floriot : You've been in New York?

  Noel : Believe me, yes.

  Floriot : How did you like it?

  Noel : It's the cat's whiskers.

• Floriot : She left me, Noel. She left me for another man. So, I divorced her.

  Noel : Too bad. Too bad. Perhaps you didn't understand her. You were expecting too much. Perhaps you didn't want a wife, you wanted an angel.

  Floriot : She proved to be neither. She left me for another man, who gave her nothing but his cheap love.

  Noel : How do you know his love was cheap?

• Noel : Who are you to assume such a Christ-like attitude?

• Floriot : She betrayed me, I tell you.

  Noel : I knew Jacqueline. She was a sweet, tender, lovable woman who needed affection. I know you too, Floriot! The moment you'd won her, you crawled into that cold, hard shell of reserve, you occasionally find. Now, when I tell you when a woman is as sweet and pure as Jacqueline was when she came to you, turns to another man for some thing she cannot find at home, that sin must be charged to the man, not the woman! You know, I tell you again, the fault must have been yours!

  Floriot : You mean to say that if you'd been in my place, you would have forgiven her?

  Noel : I not only would have forgiven her, I would have spent the rest of my life asking God to forgive me!

  Floriot : No. It's easy enough to preach, life is like that. One man can always calmly imagine that he would react, under the same conditions, much more heroically than the other one.

  Noel : Oh, its not a question of heroics, but, charity, mercy!

• Noel : I'll give you a toast. To our dear France, whose people are still allowed to drink what they wish!