But clever men are trying." As for Delia, like every sensible English girl, she enjoyed herself in the time of youth, drinking in delightedly the interest attaching to Gaston's betrothed.

His letters had been regular, kind yet not emotionally affectionate, interesting, uncommon.

He had a knack of saying as much in one page as most people did in five.

Her imagination was not great, but he stimulated it.

If he wrote a pungent line on Daudet or Whistler, on Montaigne or Fielding, she was stimulated to know them.