“No, dear, how can I? I’ve got a little wife to look after now.”
“But if you were to write and say no, you couldn’t come because you’d got a wife, perhaps he’d ask me too!”
George had no doubt of this, believing indeed that this was the result Captain Pascoe had aimed at.
“Captain Pascoe is not quite the sort of man I should like you to know, dear,” he said.
“Isn’t he an English gentleman?”
“Oh yes, but English gentlemen aren’t all angels, you know.”
“And aren’t you ever going to let me know anybody who isn’t an angel?”
“Well, darling, I don’t think anybody else is good enough.”
A pause. George hoped she was satisfied for the present. She was still behind his chair, so that he could not see her face. At last she asked, in a low, rather menacing tone:
“Are angels’ wings made of feathers, like birds’?”