"Certainly the men are.

Now, you are about the stodgiest person I know by daylight or lamplight except--except--" She stopped.

"No, I don't mean that!" she said, with an impish smile.

"There is no exception." Phil was frowning a little, but he looked relieved at her amendment.
"Thank you!" he said brusquely.

"I shall never dare to come near you after that." "Except by moonlight ?" she suggested, with the impudent audacity of a child.
What reply he would have made to that piece of nonsense he sometimes wondered afterward, but circumstances prevented his making any.