"My darling, my little jasmine-flower," he whispered, softly, "I hate leaving you, but--" "But it's impossible, Ruddy, my man.

How can I send Ian Stafford away?
It's too late to put him off." "There's no need to put him off or to send him away--such old friends as you are.

Why shouldn't he dine with you a deux?
I'm the only person that's got anything to say about that." She expressed no surprise, she really felt none.

He had forgotten that, coming up from Scotland, he had told her of this dinner with his friends, and at the moment she asked Ian Stafford to dine she had forgotten it also; but she remembered it immediately afterwards, and she had said nothing, done nothing.
As Byng spoke, however, a curious expression emerged from the far depths of her eyes--emerged, and was instantly gone again to the obscurity whence it came.

She had foreseen that he would insist on Stafford dining with her; but, while showing no surprise--and no perplexity--there was a touch of demureness in her expression as she answered: "I don't want to seem too conventional, but--" "There should be a little latitude in all social rules," he rejoined.
"What nonsense! You are prudish, Jasmine.