"Dear Teresa," exclaimed the Princess. "You are so wonderful! But you have had so many experiences. I feel I could never really love anyone unless he was pale, but pale . . . with violent rippling hair, and had eyes, blue, but blue, as skies in May, and could boast a big-big. Oh," she abstrusely broke-off, "have you ever loved anyone just like that, Teresa?"

"Several," answered the Baroness, recklessly. And as the Princess expressed a wish to know more, she was obliged to rise to her feet. These sentimental talks she usually learned to repent.

Ronald Firbank, The Artificial Princess