Never in her flippant existence had she been so absolutely flattened by any woman.

As for this recent graduate from fudge and olives, she could scarcely realise how utterly and finally she had been silenced by her.

Incredulity, exasperation, amazement had succeeded each other while Miss Erroll was speaking; chagrin, shame, helplessness followed as bitter residue.

But, in the end, the very incongruity of the situation came to her aid; for Rosamund very easily fell a prey to the absurd--even when the amusement was furnished at her own expense; and a keen sense of the ridiculous had more than once saved her dainty skirts from a rumpling that her modesty perhaps might have forgiven.
"I'm certainly a little beast," she said impulsively, "but I really do like you.

Will you forgive ?" No genuine appeal to the young girl's generosity had ever been in vain; she forgave almost as easily as she breathed.