"You'd hate me if I took your chair, I know; and though, of course, I don't in the least care whether you hate me or not, I shouldn't like putting you to the trouble of so exhaustive an emotion." Howard smiled at her with frank admiration.
"Let's compromise it," he said.

"I'll drag that chair up here--it's out of the sun, you know--so, and arrange these cushions so, and put up the end for your feet so, and--how is that, Miss Falconer ?" "Thanks," she murmured, sinking into the soft nest he had made.
"Do you object to my cigar?
Say so, if you do, and--" "You'll go off to some other nook," she put in.

"No, I like it." His eye shone with keen appreciation: this girl was not only a beauty--which is almost common nowadays--but witty, which is rare.
"Thanks! Would you like the paper?
Don't hesitate if you would; I'm not reading it; I never do.

I keep it there so that I can put it over my face if I feel like sleeping--which I generally do." She declined the paper with a gesture of her white hand.

"No, I'd rather talk; which means that you are to talk and I'm to listen: will it exhaust you too much to tell me where the rest of the people are?
I left a party in the breakfast-room squabbling over the problem how to kill time; but where are the others?
My father, for instance ?" "He is in the library with Baron Wirsch, Mr.Griffenberg, and the other financiers.