"Why, when there was the air-raid, and he brought her back here afterwards. Don't you remember?"
"Well!" Miss Delmege exclaimed, "I must say that I should have thought—"
"I'm sure I've read somewhere that those four words 'I should have thought' are responsible for more quarrels than any others in the language."
Miss Delmege disregarded Tony and her literary allusions.
"I should have thought that after the strange way Grace Jones behaved that night, the less said about it the better. It's not the kind of thing one cares to dwell upon."
"I must say," Miss Henderson agreed, "that it would have been more likely to put him off than to make him admire her. At least, so far as my experience of human nature goes."
"Well, just sign this, will you, girls?"
They all hung over Miss Plumtree's shoulder, and read the petition.
Miss Vivian's secretary put her signature down first on the list, as by rights, and decorated her "Vera M. Delmege" with an elegant flourish.
"I must say I do like what I call a characteristic signature," she remarked, hastening back to appropriate the wicker arm-chair nearest the fire.