"I'm an idiot at dancing, but would you mind sitting out a few with me ?" "If you won't talk about the floor and the decorations and the band, and ask me whether I've been to the pantomime, or if I like golf!" "I promise that those topics shall be utterly and absolutely taboo.

I'm sick of them myself." Quenrede's shyness, which was only an outer casing, had suddenly disappeared in the presence of a fellow-victim of social conventions, and conversation came easily, all the more so after being pent-up all the evening.

Henry Desmond, wandering into the conservatory presently, remarked to his partner, sotto voce: "That Saxon girl's chattering sixteen to the dozen now! Couldn't get a word out of her myself!" When Quenrede, sometime about five o'clock in the morning, tried to creep stealthily to bed without disturbing her sister, Ingred, refreshed by half a night's sleep, sat up wide awake and demanded details.
"Sh! Sh! Mother said we weren't to talk now, and I must tell you everything afterwards.

Oh, I got on better than I expected, though most of the people were rather starchy.

How did my dress look?
Well--_promise_ you won't breathe a word to darling Mother--it was just passable, and that's all.