"By Jove!" said Nick, sitting up.
"I know it's great cheek of me to suggest it," Olga hastened to say. "For of course I know I'd be a very poor substitute; but at least I could keep a motherly eye on you, and see that you were properly clothed and fed. And Muriel herself couldn't possibly love you more."
"By Jove!" Nick said again. Olga's face flushed and eager was close to his. He bent suddenly forward and kissed it. "And what about you, my chicken?" he said.
"I, Nick? I should love it!" she said, with candid eyes raised to his.
"You can't imagine how much I should love it."
"You'd be homesick," said Nick.
"Nick! With you!"
He was looking at her with shrewd, flickering eyes. "Do you mean to say," he said, "that there is no one here that you would mind leaving for so long?"
"There's Dad of course," she said. "But—don't you think perhaps Muriel wouldn't mind taking care of him for me if I took care of you for her?"
Nick broke into a laugh. "Excellent, my child! Most ingenious! Jim and Muriel are fast allies. But—Jim is not the only person you would leave behind. You ought to consider that before you get too obsessed by this enchanting idea. It's pretty beastly, you know, to feel that half the world stretches between you and—someone you might at any moment develop a pressing desire to see."
Olga frowned at him. "What are you driving at, Nick?"