"I believe that's true." "I think it is," he affirmed quietly.

"And because men are what they are, and you are you, it's quite probable you'll fail to achieve the triumph of your womanhood." He paused, then added: "You're not one of those who would count the world well lost for love, you know--except on the impulse of an imaginative moment." "No, I'm not," she answered reflectively.

"I wonder why ?" "Why?
Oh, you're a product of the times--the primeval instincts almost civilised out of you." Nan sprang to her feet with a laugh.
"I won't stay here to be vivisected one moment longer!" she declared.
"People like you ought to be blindfolded." "Anything you like--so long as I'm forgiven." "I think you'll have to be forgiven--in remembrance of the day when you took up a passenger in Hyde Park!"-- smiling.
Soon afterwards people began to take their departure, Nan and Penelope alone making no move to go, since Kitty had offered to send them home in her car "at any old time." Mallory paused as he was making his farewells to the two girls.
"And am I permitted--may I have the privilege of calling ?" he asked with one of his odd lapses into a quaintly elaborate manner that was wholly un-English.
"Yes, do.

We shall be delighted." "My thanks." And with a slight bow he left them.
Later on, when everyone else had gone, the Seymours, together with Penelope and Nan, drew round the fire for a final few minutes' yarn.
"Well, how do you like Kitty's latest lion ?" asked Barry, lighting a cigarette.
"I think he's a dear," declared Penelope warmly.

"I liked him immensely--what I saw of him." "He's such an extraordinary faculty for reading people," chimed in Kitty, puffing luxuriously at a tiny gold-tipped cigarette.
"Part of a writer's stock in trade, of course," replied Barry.