He was a master of the art of closing interviews, and she had placed the period at the end of the right sentence; it was where he would have placed it himself.

She had laughed!--and the novelty of being laughed at was refreshing.

He and Thatcher had laughed in secret at the confusion of their common enemies in old times; but most men feared him, and he had the reputation of being a mirthless person.

He had rarely discussed politics with women; he had an idea that a woman's politics, when she had any, partook of the nature of her religion, and that it was something quite emotional, tending toward hysteria.

He experienced a sense of guilt at the relief he found in Sylvia's laughter, remembering that scarcely half an hour earlier he had been at pains to justify himself before his wife for the very act which had struck this girl as funny.