If she suggested, therefore, that Elizabeth Ardmore was interested in Mr.Beresford, who is the rightful captive of my bow and spear, I should be perfectly calm.
My second reason for comfortable indifference is that frequently in novels, and always in plays, the heroine is instigated to violent jealousy by insinuations of this sort, usually conveyed by the villain of the piece, male or female.

I have seen this happen so often in the modern drama that it has long since ceased to be convincing; but though Francesca has witnessed scores of plays and read hundreds of novels, it did not apparently strike her as a theatrical or literary suggestion that Lady Ardmore's daughter should be in love with Mr.Macdonald.

The effect of the new point of view was most salutary, on the whole.

She had come to think herself the only prominent figure in the Reverend Ronald's landscape, and anything more impertinent than her tone with him (unless it is his with her) I certainly never heard.

This criticism, however, relates only to their public performances, and I have long suspected that their private conversations are of a kindlier character.