Dodo frowned, and tapped the skirt of her riding-habit with her whip. She was rather tired and very hungry, for she had been playing bridge till two o'clock the night before, and had got up at eight to go out riding, and, meaning to have breakfast afterwards, had found herself plunged in the arrangements for her ball, which had lasted without intermission till this moment. But she felt unwilling to give this point up, unless Jack absolutely put his foot down with regard to it.
"I think I am right," she said. "He is rather a devil."
"All the more reason for not asking him."
"Do you mean that you forbid me?" she asked.
He thought for a moment.
"Yes, I forbid you," he said.
Dodo got up at once, flicked him in the face with the end of her riding-whip, and before he had really time to blink, kissed him on exactly the same spot, which happened to be the end of his nose.
"That is finished, then," she said in the most good-humored voice. "And now I have both the whip and the whip-hand. If anything goes wrong, darling, I shall say 'I told you so,' till you wish you had never been born."
He caught her whip and her hands in his.
"You couldn't make me wish that," he said.