On the whole, Flora liked it better when they were silent, though it did rather give her the feeling that she was acting in one of the less cheerful German highbrow films.

Well,' said Mrs Smiling, 'it sounds an appalling place, but in a different way from all the others. I mean, it does sound interesting and appalling, while the others just sound appalling.

Like all really strong-minded women, on whom everybody flops, she adored being bossed about. It was so restful.

I do not object to the phenomena, but I do object to the parrot.

She liked Victorian novels. They were the only kind of novel you could read while eating an apple.

Here was an occasion, she thought, for indulging in that deliberate rudeness which only persons with habitually good manners have the right to commit.

Curious how Love destroys every vestige of that politeness which the human race, in its years of evolution, has so painfully acquired.