'You know that you will only work the harder just to forget your trouble.

That, depend upon it, is the only way of killing the time, as you said; if we strike at him in other ways we only succeed in making him angry.' 'Another apophthegm,' said Wilfrid, with an attempt at brightness.

'You are the first woman I have known who has that gift of neatness in speech.' 'And you are the first man who ever had discernment enough to compliment me on it.

After that, do you think I shall desert your cause ?' Wilfrid made his preparations forthwith, and decided upon a train early in the afternoon.

At luncheon, Mr.Baxendale was full of good-natured regrets that his visit could not be prolonged till the time of the election--now very near.
'When your constituents have sent you to Westminster,' said Wilfrid, 'I hope you will come and report to me the details of the fight ?' So he covered his retreat and retrieved in Mrs.Baxendale's eyes his weakness of the morning.