"Prince Shan never changes his mind, and I believe that he has decided against Immelan's scheme.
Immelan's only chance would be in Prince Shan's successor." "Why is China so necessary ?" Nigel asked.
She turned and smiled at her companion.
"Alas!" she sighed, "we have reached an _impasse_.

The great English diplomat asks too many questions of the simple Russian girl." "It is unfortunate," he replied, in the same vein, "because I feel like asking more." "As, for example ?" "Whether you would be content to live for the rest of your life in any other country except Russia." "A woman is content to live anywhere, under certain circumstances," she murmured.
Karschoff, discreetly announced, entered the room with flamboyant ease.
"It is well to be young!" he exclaimed, as he bent over Naida's fingers.
"You look, my far-away but much beloved cousin, as though you had slept peacefully through the night and spent the morning in this soft, sunlit air, with perhaps, if one might suggest such a thing, an hour at a Bond Street beauty parlour.

Here am I with crow's-feet under my eyes and ghosts walking by my side.

Yet none the less," he added, as the door opened and Maggie appeared, "looking forward to my luncheon and to hear all the news." "There is no news," Naida declared, as the butler announced the service of the meal.

"We have reached the far end of the ways.