but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering.

Intermittently she caught the gist of his sentences and supplied the rest from her subconscious, as one picks up the striking of a clock in the middle with only the rhythm of the first uncounted strokes lingering in the mind.

So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star.

I'm not much like myself any more.

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.

Never walk near the bed; to a ghost your ankle is your most vulnerable part-once in bed, you're safe; he may lie around under the bed all night, but you're safe as daylight. If you still have doubts pull the blanket over your head.

Then a strange thing happened. She turned to him and smiled, and as he saw her smile every rag of anger and hurt vanity dropped from him — as though his very moods were but the outer ripples of her own, as though emotion rose no longer in his breast unless she saw fit to pull an omnipotent controlling thread.