"No," rejoined Kathleen, with her soft laziness of speech, and blowing a ring of smoke upon the air, "it is only that you have time to forget between your visits."
Edgar removed his cigarette and began to murmur "The Owl and the Pussy Cat," in a tenor voice calculated to pour oil on troubled waters, while he struck the accompanying chords with a sure touch.
"They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note!"
he sang. "Think of it!" he groaned, pausing to save the life of his cigarette; "plenty of money! Who wouldn't be an owl or a pussy-cat!"
Kathleen's eyes narrowed.
"You speak of the rarity of my visits," he went on. "I suppose you think it is nothing to take a few hours out of a business day to run up here."
Kathleen smiled. "On the contrary, I think it so much of a thing that it always startles me to get your card on a week day, and you seem to have other uses for your Sundays."
"Very well," returned her brother, strumming the guitar with conscious rectitude; "know then that the Administration sent me up here to-day on business."
"With me?"