“Please don’t apologise,” he said, humbly. “I really have nothing to forgive. I am aware that I took a liberty, as you put it, but I thought that I was justified by the circumstances.”
“It is not generous of you, Mr. Heigham, to throw my words into my teeth. I had forgotten all about them. But I will set your want of feeling against my want of gratitude, and we kiss and be friends.”
“I can assure you, Mrs. Carr, that there is nothing in the world I should like better. When shall the ceremony come off?”
“Now you are laughing at me, and actually interpreting what I say literally, as though the English language were not full of figures of speech. By that phrase,” and she blushed a little—that is, her cheek took a deeper shade of coral—“I meant that we would not cut each other after lunch.”
“You bring me from the seventh heaven of expectation into a very prosaic world; but I accept your terms, whatever they are. I am conquered.”
“For exactly half an hour. But let us talk sense. Are you going to stop at Madeira?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know; till I get tired of it, I suppose. Is it nice, Madeira?”
“Charming. I live there half the year.”