“But the man’s balmy, Diana,” reasoned her friend angrily. “I can’t let my nice governess marry a man that’s balmy! You or somebody must stop it!⁠— Mr. Inglewood, you’re a man; go and tell them they simply can’t.”

“Unfortunately, it seems to me they simply can,” said Inglewood, with a depressed air. “I have far less right of intervention than Miss Duke, besides having, of course, far less moral force than she.”

“You haven’t either of you got much,” cried Rosamund, the last stays of her formidable temper giving way; “I think I’ll go somewhere else for a little sense and pluck. I think I know someone who will help me more than you do, at any rate⁠ ⁠… he’s a cantankerous beast, but he’s a man, and has a mind, and knows it⁠ ⁠…” And she flung out into the garden, with cheeks aflame, and the parasol whirling like a Catherine wheel.