“Does the day matter! Oh irresponsible question of the unwedded! When I tell you the butcher has not sent the meat.”
“Oh ... can’t one eat fish?” suggested Miss Du Prel.
Hadria laughed and opened the door.
“My dear, I have brought Fleming home to lunch.”
“Thank heaven, only one!”
Temperley stared.
“I could not conveniently have brought home several,” he said.
“I thought you would be at least seven,” cried the mistress of the house, “and with all the pertinacity of Wordsworth’s little girl.”
“What do you mean, if one may ask for simple English?”
“Merely that that intolerable Sanders has broken his word—hinc illæ lacrimæ.”