So long as the face was beautiful, and the tongue given to piquant raillery, any girl was good enough for him.

He was of the time when a love intrigue was a necessary part of a man's life, and not infrequently of a woman's too.
Successful lover though he had been he was not all conquering.

The ballad singer's tender liquid tones carried his memory back to the low-born girl with the laughing eyes who had captured his heart.

She sold oranges about the door of the Court of Requests, she sang ballads in the street, she was a little better than a light of love, yet Bolingbroke could never claim her as his own.

It angered him sorely that she had a smile for others.