Of course, it was very annoying that it should happen while the guests were still there." Then he added, gravely: "In strict confidence, I had planned to have it fall just as we were pushing back our chairs, but the confounded thing disappointed me.
That's the trouble with these automatic climaxes; they usually hang fire.

It was to have been a sort of Fall of Babylon effect, you know." "Splendid! But like Babylon, it fell at the wrong time." For a lively quarter of an hour they discussed people about town, liberally approving the slandered and denouncing the slanderers.

A still busier quarter of an hour ensued when together they made up the list of dinner guests.

He moved a little writing-table up to the divan, and she looked on eagerly while he wrote down the names she suggested after many puckerings of her fair, aristocratic brow, and then drew lines through them when she changed her mind.

Mrs.DeMille handled her people without gloves in making up Monty's lists.