'Never? Not even with Hélène de la Granjolaye de Ravanches?'
'Oh, I don't count my infancy. Never with anybody else.'
'It's very strange,' she said. 'Tell me some more about her.'
'Oh, bother her.'
'I suppose when they carried you off to Paris you had a tearful parting? Did you kick and scream and say you wouldn't go?'
'Why do you always make me talk about the Queen?'
'She interests me. And when you talk about the Queen, I rather like you. It is nice to see that there was a time when you were capable of an emotion.'
'You fancy I'm incapable now?'
'Tell me about your leave-taking, your farewells.'
'Bother our farewells.'