He joked about the way Thyme refused to let him joke about her art or about her interest in "the people." His joking was a source of irritation to Cecilia.

For, by woman's instinct rather than by any reasoning process, she was conscious of a disconcerting change.

Amongst the people she knew, young men were not now attracted by girls as they had been in her young days.

There was a kind of cool and friendly matter-of-factness in the way they treated them, a sort of almost scientific playfulness.

And Cecilia felt uneasy as to how far this was to go.