And the worst of it is he's simply not worth it." "I--thought not." "Why did you think not ?" "I don't know why." "He _can_ be fascinating," said Camilla reflectively, "but he doesn't always trouble himself to be." "Doesn't he ?" said Ailsa with a strange sense of relief.
Camilla hesitated, lowered her voice.
"They say he is fast," she whispered.

Ailsa, on her knees, turned and looked up.
"Whatever that means," added Camilla, shuddering.

"But all the same, every girl who sees him begins to adore him immediately until her parents make her stop." "How silly," said Ailsa in a leisurely level voice.

But her heart was beating furiously, and she turned to her roses with a blind energy that threatened them root and runner.
"How did you happen to think of him at all ?" continued Camilla mischievously.
"He called on--Mrs.Craig this afternoon." "I didn't know she knew him." "They are related--distantly--I believe----" "Oh," exclaimed Camilla.

"I'm terribly sorry I spoke that way about him, dear----" "_I_ don't care what you say about him," returned Ailsa Paige fiercely, emptying some grains of sand out of one of her gloves; resolutely emptying her mind, too, of Philip Berkley.
"Dear," she added gaily to Camilla, "come in and we'll have tea and gossip, English fashion.