When after the lapse of a few minutes he spoke at some length, she considered there was a hard square decisiveness in the shape of his sentences, as if, unlike her own and Stephen's, they were not there and then newly constructed, but were drawn forth from a large store ready-made.

They were now approaching the window to come in again.
'That is a flesh-coloured variety,' said Mrs.Swancourt.

'But oleanders, though they are such bulky shrubs, are so very easily wounded as to be unprunable--giants with the sensitiveness of young ladies.

Oh, here is Elfride!' Elfride looked as guilty and crestfallen as Lady Teazle at the dropping of the screen.

Mrs.Swancourt presented him half comically, and Knight in a minute or two placed himself beside the young lady.
A complexity of instincts checked Elfride's conventional smiles of complaisance and hospitality; and, to make her still less comfortable, Mrs.Swancourt immediately afterwards left them together to seek her husband.