"Oh, Savile!—Angel!—Genius! How?"
"Would you mind, very kindly, telling me what Chetwode's our brother-in-law for?" said Savile. "What use is he? When's he ever seen with Felicity? He can't live at curiosity shops and race-meetings. He can't expect to. Why (keep this to yourself) I brought him back last night from Yorkshire! Just in time, don't you know. Felicity was as pleased as Punch."
"My darling boy, I know you're sweet and clever, but you talk as if you had any amount of power and influence, and all that!"
"Well, I got Bertie Wilton a decoration!" He laughed. "The Order of the Boot! Now, Sylvia, pull yourself together and I'll see it through. Don't say a word to Woodville, mind that!"
"I adore you for this, Savile." During the interview the girl of twenty seemed to have grown much younger and more inexperienced, and the boy four years her junior, to have become a man.
"Tell me," she asked anxiously, "then am I to pretend to consent to his going to Athens? Why, if he did go, well, it would kill me—to begin with!"
"And what to go on with? Rot! It wouldn't kill you. It might spoil your looks, or give you a different sort of looks, that mightn't suit you so well. Awfully jolly it would be, too, having an anxious sister looking out for the post. Thanks! What a life for me! How soon has he to give an answer?"
"Oh, in a month," she answered.
"Well, let things slide; let them remain in ... what's that word?"
"I don't know. In doubt? In ... Chancery?"