However, I'd have forgiven you everything if only Stephanie weren't coming.

That woman is really beginning to irritate me.
She always seems to be making mysterious references to some sentimental past in which you both are concerned, and for which there can be no foundation at all except your supposed likeness to her exiled lover.
Why, you never met her until that day at the Carlton!" "She was a complete stranger to me," Dominey asserted.
"Then all I can say is that you have been unusually rapid if you've managed to create a past in something under three months!" Caroline pronounced suspiciously.

"I call her coming here a most bare-faced proceeding, especially as this is practically a bachelor establishment." They had arrived at the next stand, and conversation was temporarily suspended.

A flight of wild duck were put out from a pool in the wood, and for a few minutes every one was busy.

Middleton watched his master with unabated approval.
"You're most as good as the old Squire with them high duck, Sir Everard," he said.