"I shan't be if I can help it," says he; "but there are often so many difficulties in the way." He hesitates as if uncertain, and then goes on. "By the way, Tita, you shouldn't give yourself the habit of saying things like that."
"Like what?"
"Well, telling a fellow not to be an ass, you know. It doesn't matter to me, of course, but I heard you say something like that to old Lady Warbeck yesterday, and she seemed quite startled."
"Did she? Do her good!" says Tita, making a charming little face at him. "Nothing like electricity nowadays. It'll quite set her up again. Add years to her life."
"Still, she wouldn't like it, perhaps."
"Having years added to her life?"
"No; your slang."
"She likes me, any way," says Tita nonchalantly, "so it doesn't matter about the slang. The last word she mumbled at me through her old false teeth was that she hoped I'd come over and see her every Tuesday that I had at my command (I'm not going to have many), because I reminded her of some granddaughter who was now in heaven, or at the Antipodes—it's all the same."
She pauses to catch a fly—dexterously, and with amazing swiftness, in the palm of her hand—that has been buzzing aimlessly against the window-pane. Having looked at it between her fingers, she flings it into the warm air outside.
"So you see," continues she triumphantly, "it's a good thing to startle people. They fall in love with you at once."