Marjorie knew no more of flirtation or of its dialects than she did of Sanscrit. She had gone through an engagement, once, during a brief uncomfortable fortnight; an experience which took the taste for lovers and lovers’ vows most adequately out of her young mouth. And now—oh, now she never meant to marry! She had her Greek and Latin in the present, a large outlook for herself and others in the future. Of flirtation she knew nothing, of engagements she knew too much! And she liked Geff Arbuthnot, and did not like the duties of repressing his frivolity, or of ranging herself against him in the civil wars of his home life. Yet to the utmost of her strength should both these duties be fulfilled.
‘Your interests were appropriated long before you ever saw me,’ she replied at last. ‘What hour, this afternoon, would it be convenient, pray, for me to visit Mrs. Arbuthnot?’
Her tone, her look, might for a moment have suggested to Geoffrey that the secret of his youth had made unto itself wings and flown to Tintajeux. Only the very supposition were wild! Gaston, Dinah herself had never suspected the passionate madness which, in the May twilight of long ago, used to draw him night after night to the little thatched, rose-covered cottage at Lesser Cheriton.
‘Mrs. Arbuthnot? For anything I know to the contrary, Dinah will be at home between three and four o’clock.’
‘And at our next reading, sir, you will bring back my ribbon.’
‘I made no promise.’
‘Of what mortal use can a bit of ribbon be to you, Mr. Arbuthnot?’
‘I have had thoughts of turning this particular ribbon into a book-marker,’ said Geff, boldly imaginative.
‘A book-marker! I ask you—do you think it honest to keep property that belongs to other people?’