“I was in the midst of a great case,” he said, “and everything that happened to me outside it was swept out of my mind day by day. What I was going to say is that I have always liked you, from the moment when your mother presented me to you at your first dance.”
“I wish you'd told me so,” she murmured.
“It wouldn't have made any difference,” he declared. “I wasn't in a position to think of a duke's daughter, in those days. I don't suppose I am now.”
“Try,” she begged hopefully.
He smiled back at her. The reawakening of her sense of humour was something.
“Too late,” he regretted. “During the last month or so the thing has come to me which we all look forward to, only I don't think fate has treated me kindly. I have always loved normal ways and normal people, and the woman I care for is different.”
“Tell me about her?” she insisted.
“You will be very surprised when I tell you her name,” he said. “It is Margaret Hilditch.”
She looked at him for a moment in blank astonishment.
“Heavens!” she exclaimed. “Oliver Hilditch's wife!”