There are usually a lot of receptive girls making large eyes at him....

My only safety is that they are so many--and so easy....

If Cardross hadn't signed that telegram I'd bet my _bottes-sauvage_ it concerned some entanglement." Hamil lay back in his chair and studied the forest through the leaded casement.

Sometimes he thought of Portlaw's perverse determination to spoil the magnificent simplicity of the place with exotic effects lugged in by the ears; sometimes he wondered what Mr.Cardross could have to say to Malcourt--what matter of such urgent importance could possibly concern those two men.
And, thinking, he thought of Shiela--and of their last moments together; thought of her as he had left her, crouched there on her knees beside the bed, her face and head buried in her crossed arms.
Portlaw was nodding drowsily over his cigar; the April sunshine streamed into the room through every leaded pane, inlaying the floor with glowing diamonds; dogs barked from the distant kennels; cocks were crowing from the farm.

Outside the window he saw how the lilac's dully varnished buds had swollen and where the prophecy of snow-drop and crocus under the buckthorn hedge might be fulfilled on the morrow.