Disjointed thoughts ran jumblingly through her head.

I think she saw that I was disappointed, and a trifle shy at going alone, so off we went together —Charmion a marvel of unobtrusive elegance in grey, and I "taking the eye” in sapphire-blue—along the breezy lane, past the closed gates of Uplands, through the shuttered High Street into the tiny square, in a corner of which the church was nooked, with the vicarage garden adjoining the churchyard.

It was what had attracted me to her in the first place. You can say something, I said. I'm easy to talk to. She frowned. The last time we had a private talk, in her kitchen, she admitted to playing me for a fool, making me fall in love with her, and breadcrumbing my way to discovering a deadly necromantic artifact.

Did you hear about the man who was half Portagee and half Italian? He made himself an offer he couldn't understand.