“No, thank you, I don’t like. Nothing bores me so much as other people’s silly love affairs.”
Baffled in defence, Godfrey resorted to attack.
“What has become of the knight in armour?” he asked.
“He is married and has twins. I saw the announcement of their birth in the paper yesterday. And what has become of the lady with the flower? For since there was a flower, there must have been a lady; I suppose the same whom you pulled up the precipice.”
“She is married also, to her cousin, but I don’t know that she has any children yet, and I never pulled her up any precipice. It was a man I pulled, a very heavy one. My arm isn’t quite right yet.”
“Oh!” said Isobel. Then with another sudden change of voice she went on. “Now tell me all about yourself, Godfrey. There must be such lots to say, and I long to hear.”
So he told her, and she told him of herself, and they talked and talked till the shadows of advancing night began to close around them. Suddenly Godfrey looked at his watch, of which he could only just see the hands.
“My goodness!” he said, “it is half-past seven.”
“Well, what about it? It doesn’t matter when I dine, for I have come down alone here for a few days, a week perhaps, to get the house ready for my father and his friends.”
“Yes, but my father dines at seven, and if there is one thing he hates it is being kept waiting for dinner.”