"And how is Miss Merritt?" John inquired of Miss Hamilton, when he had bowed his appreciation of the witticism. But before she could reply, her mother rattled on: "Miss Merritt will not take Doris to America again. Miss Merritt has written a book called The Aphorisms of Aphrodite."
The old lady's remarkable eyebrows were darting about her forehead like forked lightning while she spoke.
"The Aphorisms of Aphrodite!" she repeated. "A collection of some of the most declassical observations that I have ever encountered." Like a diver's arms the eyebrows drew themselves together for a plunge into unfathomable moral depths.
"My dear mother, lots of people found it very amusing," her daughter protested.
"Miss Merritt," the old lady asserted, "was meant for bookkeeping by double-entry, instead of which she had taken to book-writing by double-entente. The profits may be treble, but the method is base. How did she affect you, Mr. Touchwood?"
"She frightened me," John confessed. "I thought her manner somewhat severe."
"You hear that, Doris? Her ethical exterior frightened him."
"You're both very unfair to Ida. I only wish I had half her talents."
"Wrapped in a napkin," said the old lady, "you have your shorthand."
John's heart leapt.