"I should like to see you with your mallet."
"I am sorry your Grace cannot be gratified. I have played croquet till I am tired of it, and have come to think it is only fit for boys and girls. The great thing is to give them opportunities for flirting, and it does that."
"And do you never flirt, Madame Goesler?"
"Never at croquet, Duke."
"And what with you is the choicest time?"
"That depends on so many things,—and so much on the chosen person. What do you recommend?"
"Ah,—I am so ignorant. I can recommend nothing."
"What do you say to a mountain-top at dawn on a summer day?" asked Madame Max Goesler.
"You make me shiver," said the Duke.
"Or a boat on a lake on a summer evening, or a good lead after hounds with nobody else within three fields, or the bottom of a salt-mine, or the deck of an ocean steamer, or a military hospital in time of war, or a railway journey from Paris to Marseilles?"