“It would be lunacy, stark lunacy. Even for her—I admit she has a right to look high—but even for her it will be a fine match. He’s got everything before him. And then look how handsome, how fascinating he is!” She laughed. “Old as I am, I wouldn’t trust myself with him, George!”
“I haven’t met Kirby here before,” I observed, perhaps rather abruptly.
“Mr Kirby? Oh, he’s quite a protégé of Frank’s. We met him in Switzerland last winter, and Frank and he did all sorts of unsafe things together—things you oughtn’t to do in winter.”
“He probably stops the avalanches with his head.”
“I really don’t know where he comes from or who he is, but he’s in the Colonial Office, and Frank says they think enormous things of him there. I like him, but, do you know, he’s rather hard to keep up a conversation with. He always seems to say the last thing about a subject first.”
“Very bad economy,” I agreed.
“Some people—well, I have heard people say it’s hardly polite—when they’re just thinking of something to say themselves, you know——”
“He probably can’t help it,” I pleaded.
“Katharine seems to like him, though, and I daresay she’ll get Val to give him a lift in the future.”
“You’re treating it as quite settled.”