Miss Voile disengaged herself.
“No endearments, please,” she said calmly enough. “This is a serious business. I’ve compromised myself good and proper, you know. And until we’re out of the wood I’d rather go slow—dead slow.”
“My dear——”
“Don’t call me your ‘dear,’ ” cried Cicely, stamping her foot.
“It’s ‘without prejudice,’ ” said Toby.
“What about our engagement? That’s ‘without prejudice’ too. The trouble is we omitted to point that out to Mrs. Medallion.”
“Well, I’m very sorry,” said Toby. “But what did you do it for?”
“Why do people go in after drowning men? Because they can’t stand still and see them drown. I did it out of common humanity. When I looked over the wall I saw how matters stood—saw in a flash. It wasn’t particularly bright of me. If you could have seen your face. . . . Well, there was only one thing to be done. The difficulty was how to do it. And then with her very first words she smoothed that away.”
“Common humanity or not, it was a most handsome act. And I’m deeply, deeply grateful. I’ll put things right, of course.”
“How?”