It said, to an understanding unpractised in the feminine mysteries: 'I can sleep through anything.' What that revealed of her state of conscience and her nature, his efforts to preserve the lovely optical figure blocked his guessing.

He was with her friends, who liked her the more they knew her, and he was compelled to lean to their view of the perplexing woman.
'She is a riddle to the world,' Lady Esquart said, 'but I know that she is good.

It is the best of signs when women take to her and are proud to be her friend.' My lord echoed his wife.

She talked in this homely manner to stop any notion of philandering that the young gentleman might be disposed to entertain in regard to a lady so attractive to the pursuit as Diana's beauty and delicate situation might make her seem.
'She is an exceedingly clever person, and handsomer than report, which is uncommon,' said Dacier, becoming voluble on town-topics, Miss Asper incidentally among them.

He denied Lady Esquart's charge of an engagement; the matter hung.
His letters at Lugano summoned him to England instantly.
'I have taken leave of Mrs.Warwick, but tell her I regret, et caetera,' he said; 'and by the way, as my uncle's illness appears to be serious, the longer she is absent the better, perhaps.' 'It would never do,' said Lady Esquart, understanding his drift immediately.