Mary Roberts Rinehart

“ Fred and Edith met me inside the door.
"Here's your latch-key, Jack," Fred said, as he shook hands. "Only one stipulation—remember we are strangers in the vicinity and try to get home before the neighbors are up. We have our reputations to think of."
"There is no hour for breakfast," Edith said, as she kissed me. "You have a bath of your own, and don't smoke in the drawing-room."
Fred was always a lucky devil. ”

“ I called.
"For Heaven's sake, Edith," Fred's voice rose irritably. "If you and Jack are going to talk all evening, go and sit on his knee and let me alone. The way you two flirt under my nose is a scandal. Do you hear that, Jack?"
"Good night, Edith," I called, "I have left you a kiss on the upper left hand panel of the door. And I want to ask you one more question: what if I fly from the woman and she doesn't follow?" ”

“ I demanded, blocking the door to the library.
"You'll be forty, Jack, and it's a mighty unattractive man who gets past forty without being sought and won by some woman. You'll be buying—"
"I will be thirty-nine," I said with dignity, "and as far as being sought and won goes, I am so overwhelmed by Fred's misery that I don't intend to marry at all. If I do—if I do—it will be to some girl who turns and runs the other way every time she sees me."
"The oldest trick in the box," Edith scoffed. "What's that thing Fred's always quoting: 'A woman is like a shadow; follow her, she flies ”