If you will allow her to come out with me for an hour or so, I----" "If you are waiting for _my_ sanction, Mr.Curzon, to that extraordinary proposal, you will wait some time," says Miss Majendie slowly, frigidly.
She draws the shawl still closer, and sniffs again.
"But----" "There is no 'But,' sir.

The subject doesn't admit of argument.

In my young days, and I should think"-- scrutinizing him exhaustively through her glasses--"_in yours_, it was not customary for a young _gentlewoman_ to go out walking, alone, with '_a man_'!!" If she had said with a famished tiger, she couldn't have thrown more horror into her tone.
The professor had shrunk a little from that classing of her age with his, but has now found matter for hope in it.
"Still--my age--as you suggest--so far exceeds Perpetua's--I am indeed so much older than she is, that I might be allowed to escort her wherever it might please her to go." "The _real_ age of a man now-a-days, sir, is a thing impossible to know," says Miss Majendie.

"You wear glasses--a capital disguise! I mean nothing offensive--_so far_--sir, but it behoves me to be careful, and behind those glasses, who can tell what demon lurks?
Nay! No offence! An _innocent_ man would _feel_ no offence!" "Really, Miss Majendie!" begins the poor professor, who is as red as though he were the guiltiest soul alive.
"Let me proceed, sir.

We were talking of the ages of men." _"We ?"_ "Certainly! It was you who suggested the idea, that, being so much older than my niece, Miss Wynter, you could therefore escort her here and there--in fact _everywhere_--in fact"-- with awful meaning--"_any_ where!" "I assure you, madam," begins the professor, springing to his feet--Perpetua puts out a white hand.
"Ah! let her talk," says she.