I shouldn't like them to catch cold, poor dears, and ruin their voices." In tones more than telephonically agonised he bade me not make a jest of his misery.

I nearly threw the receiver at the blockhead.
"I'm not jesting," I bawled; "I'm deadly serious.

I knew Lucy before you did, and I kissed her and she kissed me years before she knew of your high existence; and if she had been a sensible woman she would have married me instead of you--what?
The first time you've heard of it?
Of course it is--and be decently thankful that you hear it now." It is pleasant sometimes to tell the husbands of girls you have loved exactly what you think of them; and I had loved Lucy Latimer.

She came, an English rose, to console me for the loss of my French _fleur-de-lis_, Clothilde.

Or was it the other way about?
One does get so mixed in these things.