"Miss Boynton. I thought you'd got to the Bobby stage. Perhaps you'd rather make it Roberta."
"Yes, I think I should, if I may."
For a few seconds they dropped into silence, he puffing away at his cigar, and she gazing off to the horizon as if she had quite forgotten his presence.
"Were you ever in love?" she asked, turning on him suddenly.
"Why do you ask?" he said, scrutinizing the ash of his cigar.
"Because it's so queer you never got married. I thought young Englishmen with names and estates to keep up always married right away."
"Well, I suppose they do, as a rule. The Hascombes are rather different. Of course there have been a lot of girls who were foolish enough to—er—to think—"
"To think they were in love with you? Go ahead! I'll shut my eyes."
Instead, she opened them very wide, and he had to unbutton his coat just for the sake of buttoning it up again.
"But I don't care about them," she went on; "I want to know if you've ever been in love."