'I'm afraid I carried you off rather unceremoniously!' 'No,' Margaret answered.

'I'm glad to be quiet, it's so long since I was at a dinner-party.' 'I've always hoped to meet you,' said Lady Maud, 'but you're quite different from what I expected.

I did not know you were really so young--ever so much younger than I am.' 'Really ?' 'Oh, yes! I'm seven-and-twenty, and I've been married four years.' 'I'm twenty-four,' said Margaret, 'and I'm not married yet.' She was aware that the clear eyes were studying her face, but she did not resent their scrutiny.

There was something about her companion that inspired her with trust at first sight, and she did not even remember the impossible story Logotheti had told her.
'I suppose you are tormented by all sorts of people who ask things, aren't you ?' Margaret wondered whether the beauty was going to ask her to sing for nothing at a charity concert.
'I get a great many begging letters, and some very amusing ones,' she answered cautiously.

'Young girls, of whom I never heard, write and ask me to give them pianos and the means of getting a musical education.