"Oh, hideous horror! And this is what they call flirtation," I thought. And the hope which had risen blazing, like a rocket, went down fuliginous, like the stick.
"Mr. Plovins, I will say you are very—very inconstant, to be absent all day, thus."
"Miss Tarlingford, it is not inconstancy, it is billiards."
"Billiards!"
"Billiards. I adore them. You know nothing of billiards; women never do. They are my joy. Pardon me," (with a sudden uprising of the moral sense,) "I have an engagement at the billiard-room, and I should be there."
"Dear me! I should like to do billiards."
"Heaven forbid!"
"Why so, Sir?"
"No, I do not mean that; but ladies never play billiards."
"I suppose there is no reason why they should not?"