I had an apt epigram on the subject of Renaissance humour trembling on my pen-point, when Miss Griggs came in with her foolish gossip.

I am sure the platitude I wrote afterwards is not that original flash of wit.
Carlotta entered and crossed the room to the side of my writing-chair, her great dark eyes fixed on me, and her hands dutifully behind her back.

She looked a Greuze picture of innocence.

I believed less than ever in the enormity of the offence.
"Do you know what you're here for ?" I asked, magisterially.
She nodded.
"Then you _have_ been making love to the young man from the grocer's ?" She nodded again.

I began to conceive a violent dislike to the grocer's young man.