"Naughty, naughty!" he replied, with an archness which made her understand Stephen's brutality to him. "Tilda dear, are you dressed yet?"
"Nearly. Why?"
"Don't go down without me! I've got an idea!"
"You're not laying your head together with mine, Joe: don't think it!"
He only laughed at this, but he must have kept an ear cocked, for when she opened her door a few minutes later, he instantly emerged from his room, rubbing his hands together, and saying gleefully: "Ah, you can't fox your old uncle, you bad girl!"
"Let me point out to you, Joe, that you're not my uncle, and that even my best friends don't call me a girl."
He linked arms with her. "Wasn't it the Immortal Bard who wrote, To me, dearfriend,you never can be old?"
Mathilda closed her eyes for an anguished moment. "If we are going to quote at one another, I warn you, you'll come off the worst!" she said. "I know a song which runs, Your parents missed a golden opportunity: They should of course have drowned you in a bucket as a child."
He squeezed her arm, chuckling. "Oh, that tongue of yours, Tilda! Never mind! I don't care a bit! not a little bit! Now, just you listen to the plan I've made! You're going to play Piquet with Nat after dinner."
"Not on your life."