I am not, as you can suppose, in his confidence, but I hear of him from Dr.Shrapnel.' 'Your uncle ?' 'I call him uncle: he is my guardian, madam.' It is perhaps excuseable that this communication did not cause the doctor to shine with added lustre in Rosamund's thoughts, or ennoble the young lady.
'You are not relatives, then ?' she said.
'No, unless love can make us so.' 'Not blood-relatives ?' 'No.' 'Is he not very...

extreme ?' 'He is very sincere.' 'I presume you are a politician ?' Miss Denham smiled.

'Could you pardon me, madam, if I said that I was ?' The counter-question was a fair retort enfolding a gentler irony.

Rosamund felt that she had to do with wits as well as with vivid feminine intuitions in the person of this Miss Denham.
She said, 'I really am of opinion that our sex might abstain from politics.' 'We find it difficult to do justice to both parties,' Miss Denham followed.

'It seems to be a kind of clanship with women; hardly even that.' Rosamund was inattentive to the conversational slipshod, and launched one of the heavy affirmatives which are in dialogue full stops.