“Love bird,” Hero corrected herself docilely.
Mr Ringwood regarded her in considerable perturbation. “You know what it is, Kitten: if you use expressions like that in company you’ll set up the backs of people, and find yourself all to pieces. You will indeed! Sherry has no business to talk as he must in front of you!”
“It isn’t Sherry’s fault!” Hero said, firing up in defence of her free-spoken husband. “He is for ever telling me what I must not say! The thing is that I don’t perfectly remember what I may say, and what I may not. I dare say I ought not to call that dancer a fancy-piece either?”
“Upon no account in the world!” Mr Ringwood said emphatically.
“Well, I must say I think it is very hard. What may I call her, Gil?”
“Nothing at all! Ladies know nothing of such things.”
“Yes, they do. Why, it was my cousin Cassy who first told me about Sherry’s opera dancer, so that just shows how mistaken you are!”
“Well, they pretend they do not, at all events!” said Mr Ringwood desperately.
“Oh, do they? But Sherry told me himself that everyone has an opera dancer, or something of the sort, and there is nothing in it. Gil, have you — ”
“No!” said Mr Ringwood, with more haste than civility.