I thought she must be an actress—and yet she hadn't quite that manner. At any rate I said:
"I'm awfully sorry, but you see I'm only editor, and I've nothing really to do with the dramatic criticism. However, please say the word, and I'll ginger up my man at once."
"Dramatic criticism!" she said, her eyes wide with surprise. "Sir Thomas, can it really be that you don't know who I am?"
It was a little embarrassing.
"Do you know, I know your face awfully well," I said, "though I'm quite sure we've never met before or I should have remembered, and when Lady Stileman introduced us just now all I caught was Poppy."
She sighed—I should put her between nineteen and twenty in age—"Well, for a London editor, you are a fossil, though you don't look more than about six-and-twenty. Why, Poppy Boynton!"
Then, in a flash, I knew. This was the Hon. Poppy Boynton, Lord Portesham's daughter, the flying girl, the leading lady aviator, who had looped the loop over Mont Blanc and done all sorts of mad, extraordinary things.
"Of course, I know you, Miss Boynton! Only, I never expected to meet you here. What a chance for an editor! Do tell me all your adventures."
"Will you give me a column interview on the front page if I do?"
"Of course I will. I'll write it myself."