“I perfectly agree with you, sir,' was then his remark. 'You did behave very shamefully. You never wrote a truer line.”

“Were you locked in your room?" enquired Sir Richard."Oh no! I daresay I should have been if Aunt had guessed what I meant to do, but she would never think of such a thing.""Then--forgive my curiosity!--why did you climb out of the window?" asked Sir Richard."Oh, that was on account of Pug!" replied Pen sunnily."Pug?""Yes, a horrid little creature! He sleeps in a basket in the hall, and he always yaps if he thinks one is going out. That would have awakened Aunt Almeria. There was nothing else I could do."Sir Richard regarded her with a lurking smile. "Naturally not. Do you know, Pen, I owe you a debt of gratitude?""Oh!" she said again. "Do you mean that I don't behave as a delicately bred femaile should?""That is one way of putting it, certainly.""It is the way Aunt Almeria puts it.""She would, of course.""I am afraid," confessed Pen, "that I am not very well-behaved. Aunt says that I had a lamentable upbringing, because my father treated me as though I had been a boy. I ought to have been, you understand.""I cannot agree with you," said Sir Richard. "As a boy you would have been in no way remarkable; as a female, believe me, you are unique."She flushed to the roots of her hair. "I think that is a compliment.""It is," Sir Richard said, amused."Well, I wasn't sure, because I am not out yet, and I do not know any men except my uncle and Fred, and they don't pay compliments. That is to say, not like that.”

“Are you suggesting we pull a little good cop, bad cop scenario on him? And You're even letting me be the bad cop?"He bowed his head. "That, my pretera, is how much I love you.""You have never been sexier than at this very moment.""It is a shame we have so much company," he agreed quietly.”

“...it would seem that whoever did write this book knows you very well. You appear in it, sir. As...as the hero.”

“I know not, sir, whether Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare, but if he did not it seems to me that he missed the opportunity of his life. ”

“My breaking heart and I agree, that you and I could never be, so with my best...my very best, I set you free”