"Good heavens--it's the golden age! You're all too kind."

"The kindness on my part is to her; it's hardly to you."

"Granting that, SHE'S kind," smiled Ralph.

"To get people to go with you? Yes, that's a sort of kindness,"
Goodwood answered without lending himself to the joke. "For
myself, however," he added, "I'll go so far as to say that I
would much rather travel with you and Miss Stackpole than with
Miss Stackpole alone."

"And you'd rather stay here than do either," said Ralph. "There's
really no need of your coming. Henrietta's extraordinarily
efficient."

"I'm sure of that. But I've promised Mrs. Osmond."

"You can easily get her to let you off."

"She wouldn't let me off for the world. She wants me to look
after you, but that isn't the principal thing. The principal
thing is that she wants me to leave Rome."

"Ah, you see too much in it," Ralph suggested.

"I bore her," Goodwood went on; "she has nothing to say to me, so
she invented that."

"Oh then, if it's a convenience to her I certainly will take you