"And I didn't come to discuss it--if you'll excuse my apparent rudeness in saying so." "Then things are as they were between us." "Not quite, I hope," he replied in a dignified way.

"When last you spoke to me about Phyllis Gedge, I really didn't know my own mind.

I am not a cad and the thought of--of anything wrong never entered my head.
On the other hand, marriage seemed out of the question." "I remember," said I, "you talked some blithering rot about her being a symbol." "I am quite willing to confess I was a fool," he admitted gracefully.
"And I merited your strictures." His reversion to artificiality annoyed me.

I'm far from being of an angelic disposition.
"My dear boy," I cried.

"Do, for God's sake, talk human English, and not the New Oxford Dictionary." He flushed angrily, snapped an impatient finger and thumb, and marched away to the gravel path.