“Yes. Why should we study etiquette, and be punctilious when other people’s life’s happiness is concerned?”

“Well, that’s what I thought, but you jumped upon me.”

“I didn’t, sir. I only said—”

“Enough to make me miserable for days. That’s all.”

“Please forgive me, Percy.”

“Jump on me again, Edie,” he whispered passionately—“ten times, a hundred times as hard, so as to ask forgiveness again like that.”

“If you are so stupid, I will not say another word.”

“Mute as a fish.”

“Can’t you understand how wretched it must make Myra feel to see other people happy?”

“Then you are happy, little one?”