Already she could feel the stunning weight of a lifetime of regret for letting him go, and she knew that it was enought to bury her alive.

He turned his dark eyes on the girl whom he had dreamed of so often over the previous months. Beside him, at that very moment of existence, at the heart of torrential downpour, she was exquisitely real, and she, too, seemed content to go on sitting there forever.

She had rarely been near Henry since then, and the sight of him now was like a concentrated dose.

She was trying to sound tough and impatient, but she knew that vulnerable desire to be wooed was still brimming in her tone.

There was no pleasure like being envied on a mass scale.

The value of secrets is ever fluctuating although ladies who have been in society for a long time learn that a secret kept can be worth more than a secret told.

Girls," their mother interjected, "you must both stop being strange - it is unattractive. And don't forget your hats. It would be absolutely the end for me if you two came down with freckles at a time like this.