“What a father-protector you are,” she said, “according to your own account, and all because you’re a—what is it?—a Dago? Well, well! you’ve got all the virtues of Greece and all the virtues of us too. Well, well, well!”
“Oh, come, come,” Robert Grimshaw said. “I’ve given you your opening; you’re quite right to take it. But I’ve not the least doubt that I’ve got the Dago vices if any pressure came to bring ’em out. I dare say I shouldn’t be straight about money if I were hard up. Fortunately, I’m not. I dare say I should be untruthful if I ever had occasion to be. I should be rather too tender-hearted and too slack to get on in the world if I had to do it—at least, I suppose so.”
She said:
“Well, well! Here’s a joke! Here we have—what is it?—a Dago—a blamed Dago, as Clement P. would say.”
“You know the Van Husums?” Grimshaw interrupted her.
“Oh, I thought I’d tickle you,” she said. “Yes, I know the Van Husums, and your Katya Lascarides was in their employment, wasn’t she? But I’m not going to talk of your other flame, Mr. Robert Hurstlett Grimshaw. You don’t play your Oriental harem trick in this taxi-cab. One man one girl’s the motto here. I only introduced Clement P.’s name to stir you up; you’re so damn calm.”
“This is a fight,” Grimshaw said. “You score one and go on.”
“What are we fighting for?” she asked.
“Ah! that’s telling,” he said.
“If you only want to tell me I’m a bad, bad girl,” she said, “I know it already. I’m rather proud of it.”