‘I don’t care for your speculations—I want to hear what passed between you and the Greek girl.’
‘The Greek girl will in a very few days be Mrs. Walpole, and I shall crave a little more deference for the mention of her.’
‘I forgot her name, or I should not have called her with such freedom! What is it?’
‘Kostalergi. Her father is Kostalergi, Prince of Delos.’
‘All right; it will read well in the Post.’
‘My dear friend, there is that amount of sarcasm in your conversation this evening, that to a plain man like myself, never ready to reply, and easily subdued by ridicule, is positively overwhelming. Has any disaster befallen you that you are become so satirical and severe?’
‘Never mind me—tell me about yourself,’ was the blunt reply.
‘I have not the slightest objection. When we had walked a little way together, and I felt that we were beyond the risk of interruption, I led her to the subject of my sudden reappearance here, and implied that she, at least, could not have felt much surprise. “You remember,” said I, “I promised to return?”
‘“There is something so conventional,” said she, “in these pledges, that one comes to read them like the ‘yours sincerely’ at the foot of a letter.”
‘“I ask for nothing better,” said I, taking her up on her own words, “than to be ‘yours sincerely.’ It is to ratify that pledge by making you ‘mine sincerely’ that I am here.”