He struck better than he knew, as, meaning only to pass safely by an awkward conversational corner, he replied: 'No jolly fear of that! You're too much of a boss for me!' The words and the levity with which they were spoken struck the girl as with a whip.

She turned for an instant as pale as ashes; then the red blood rushed from her heart, and face and neck were dyed crimson.

It was not a blush, it was a suffusion.

In his ignorance Leonard thought it was the former, and went on with what he considered his teasing.
'Oh yes! You know you always want to engineer a chap your own way and make him do just as you wish.

The man who has the happiness of marrying you, Stephen, will have a hard row to hoe!' His 'chaff' with its utter want of refinement seemed to her, in her high-strung earnest condition, nothing short of brutal, and for a few seconds produced a feeling of repellence.