He shook his head disbelievingly.
"You rejected me to marry some other man: do you say you did not mean to?"
"You naughty Harry!... You never married yourself?"
"I?" The delicate features expressed a species of hurt horror. "I marry? No! I was ever faithful to my first love."
She unfurled her fan, fluttering it delightedly.
"Oh! Oh! Always, Harold? Now speak the truth!"
"Nearly always," he amended.
"Disagreeable man! You admit you had lapses then?"
"So very trivial, my dear," he excused himself. "And I swear my first action on coming to London was to call at Wyncham House. Imagine my disappointment—my incalculable gloom (on the top of having already dropped a thousand at faro) when I found the shell void, and Venus—"
She stopped him, her fan held ready for chastisement.