"Up, you mean--a--to his mother ?" "Well, I'm not thinking of his mother now.

I'm thinking of the plan of which I was the mouthpiece, which, as soon as we met, I put before him as persuasively as I knew how, and which was drawn up, as it were, in complete ignorance of all that, in this last long period, has been happening to him.

It took no account whatever of the impression I was here on the spot immediately to begin to receive from him--impressions of which I feel sure I'm far from having had the last." Miss Gostrey had a smile of the most genial criticism.

"So your idea is--more or less--to stay out of curiosity ?" "Call it what you like! I don't care what it's called--" "So long as you do stay?
Certainly not then.

I call it, all the same, immense fun," Maria Gostrey declared; "and to see you work it out will be one of the sensations of my life.