My good German tutor used to lament that there was too much of my boyhood still left in me.

Honestly admiring her, I let my favorable opinion express itself a little too plainly.

"What a splendid creature you are!" I burst out.

Cristel did her duty to herself and to me; she passed over my little explosion of nonsense without taking the smallest notice of it.
"Master Gerard," she began--and checked herself.

"Please to excuse me, sir; you have set my head running on old times.