“Let me get you a fresh green carnation.”
She pinned it on him. They grow freely in the desert.
But she said emphatically:
“The story, sir, is wholly unworthy of you.”
“Good heavens!” said Mr. Hitchings in ineffable alarm. “This isn’t my stuff! How could you think it? How ridiculous of me to have permitted myself to be persuaded by Amut to try and put this over! I regret the attempt abysmally. Right now, hear me, fair lady: I wash my hands of the Hull thing!”
“Friendship may excuse this conduct of yours,” said Verbeena coldly. “But how, if you are also English, is it that Amut makes a friend of you?”
“Now, there’s something else again, isn’t it? Just as if a rebellious Sheik around here for an instant would make a bosom friend of a Frenchman. It’s a desperately silly story all the way through and I surely apologize and—O—what?”
Verbeena had seized both hands and just wouldn’t let go.
“Forget it,” she was saying. “I’ve something much more important.”