“But she had a lively acquaintaince with confinement through the works of women novelists, especially those of the unmarried ones.”

“Flora sighed. It was curious that persons who lived what the novelists called a rich emotional life always seemed to be a bit slow on the uptake.”

“Surely she had endured enough for one evening without having to listen to intelligent conversation?”

“The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living.”

“Like all really strong-minded women, on whom everybody flops, she adored being bossed about. It was so restful.”

“Mrs Poste, who had wished people to live beautiful lives and yet be ladies and gentlemen.”

“The audience had run to beards and magenta shirts and original ways of arranging its neckwear; and not content with the ravages produced in its over-excitable nervous system by the remorseless workings of its critical intelligence, it had sat through a film of Japanese life called 'Yes,' made by a Norwegian film company in 1915 with Japanese actors, which lasted an hour and three-quarters and contained twelve close-ups of water-lilies lying perfectly still on a scummy pond and four suicides, all done extremely slowly.”