“That’s distinctly heroic, Spartan, of them, don’t you think?” he said. “Internally, poor dears, they’re very likely suffering agonies of discomfiture.”
“We’ll hope they are. Could they decently do less?” said she.
“And fancy the mental struggles that must be going on in their brains,” he urged. “If I were a man in such a situation I’d throw myself upon the woman’s mercy. I’d say, ’Beautiful, sweet lady! I know I know you. Your name, your entirely charming and appropriate name, is trembling on the tip of my tongue. But, for some unaccountable reason, my brute of a memory chooses to play the fool. If you’ve a spark of Christian kindness in your soul, you’ll come to my rescue with a little clue.’.rdquo;
“If the woman had a Christian sense of the ridiculous in her soul, I fear you’d throw yourself on her mercy in vain,” she warned him.
“What is the good of tantalising people?”
“Besides,” she continued, “the woman might reasonably feel slightly humiliated to find herself forgotten in that bare-faced manner.”
“The humiliation surely would be all the man’s. Have you heard from the Wohenhoffens lately?”
“The—what? The—who?” She raised her eyebrows.
“The Wohenhoffens,” he repeated.
“What are the Wohenhoffens? Are they persons? Are they things?”