I do not object to her flicking her wet fingers at me when she comes dripping out of the sea; and I do not even reproach her when she puts her foot upon my sartorially immaculate knee, to show me a pebble-cut on her glistening pink sole.
Her conduct has been exemplary.

I have allowed her to make the acquaintance of two or three young fellows, her partners at the Casino dances, and she walks up and down the terrace with them before meals.

I have forbidden her, under penalty of immediate return to London and of my eternal displeasure, to mention the harem at Alexandretta.

Young fellows are gifted with a genius for misapprehension.

She is an ordinary young English lady, an orphan (which is true), and I am her guardian.
Of course she looks at them with imploring eyes, and pulls them by the sleeve, and handles the lappels of their coats, and admits them to terms of the frankest intimacy; but I can no more change these characteristics than I can alter the shape of her body.