"A right idea can't be ridiculous." "Oh, I only said the man that held it was.

He's flat; he has no relief, no projection." She seemed unable to answer, and he perceived that he had silenced her to his own, disadvantage.

It appeared to Beaton that she was becoming a little too exacting for comfort in her idealism.

He put down the cup of tea he had been tasting, and said, in his solemn staccato: "I must go.
Good-bye!" and got instantly away from her, with an effect he had of having suddenly thought of something imperative.
He went up to Mrs.Horn for a moment's hail and farewell, and felt himself subtly detained by her through fugitive passages of conversation with half a dozen other people.

He fancied that at crises of this strange interview Mrs.Horn was about to become confidential with him, and confidential, of all things, about her niece.