"Of course I am, Cupid," she said.
"I'm going to dine with Gilbert."
"Gilbert?"
"Gilbert Lothian I mean, of course. We are absolute friends, Wog dear—he and I. I haven't told you before, but I will now. You remember that night I was home so late, nearly a month ago? Yes?—well I had been motoring to Brighton with Gilbert. I met him for the first time at the Amberleys'—but that you know. Since then we have become friends—such a strange and wonderful friendship it is, Ethel! It's made things so different for me."
"But how friends? Have you seen him often, then? But you can't have?"
Rita shook her head, impatiently for a moment, and then she smiled gently. How could poor old Wog know or understand!
"No!" she cried, with a little tap of her shoe upon the carpet. "But there are such things as letters aren't there?"
"Has he been writing to you, then?"
"Writing! I have had four of the most beautiful letters that a poet ever wrote. It took him days to write each one. He chose every word, over and over again. Every sentence is music, every word a note in a chord!"
Ethel went up to her friend and kissed her. "Dear old Cupid," she said, "I'm so glad, so very glad. I don't understand his poems myself, but Father simply loves them. I am sure you will be very happy. Only I do hope he is a good man—really worthy of my dear! And so"—she continued, with a struggle to get down to commonplace brightness of manner—"And so he's coming for you to-night! Now I know why you look so beautiful and are so happy."