“Your directness unnerves me,” he smiled.
“Pull yourself together, then, Mr. Thorold. Be a man.”
“Will you let me treat you as a friend?”
“Why, yes,” she said, “if you’ll promise not to tell me I’m only eighteen.”
“I am incapable of such rudeness,” Cecil replied. “A woman is as old as she feels. You feel at least thirty; therefore you are at least thirty. This being understood, I am going to suggest, as a friend, that if you and Mr. Vaux-Lowry are—perhaps pardonably—contemplating any extreme step——”
“Extreme step, Mr. Thorold?”
“Anything rash.”
“And suppose we are?” Geraldine demanded, raising her chin scornfully and defiantly and dangling her parasol.
“I should respectfully and confidentially advise you to refrain. Be content to wait, my dear middle-aged woman. Your father may relent. And also, I have a notion that I may be able to—to——”
“Help us?”