“If you’re going to be as particular as that, Joan, I think I’d be content with a gulp or two of emotion or perhaps a lump in the throat. Cheer up! You’ve one more night before the shadows fall.”
“Ah, there it is!” said Joan, tragically. “You’re young, Una, and you never had any foresight, anyway. But I can see it all coming. I can see the fat ankles”—she glanced down at her own slim ones—“and the artificial silk stockings at three-and-eleven the pair; because Michael’s business will always be mismanaged, with him at the head of it. And I’ll have that red nose that comes from indigestion; because after Michael ends up in bankruptcy, we won’t be able to keep a maid, and I never could cook anything whatever. And then Michael will grow fat, and short of breath and bald . . .”
“That’ll be quite enough for the present,” interrupted the outraged Michael. “I’m not so sure about letting you marry me at all, after that pleasant little sketch.”
“If you can’t drop those domineering ways of yours, Michael, I shall withdraw,” Joan warned him, coldly. “You can boss other people as much as you choose; I rather like to see you doing it. But it doesn’t go with me, remember. If you show these distressing signs of wanting your own way, I shall simply have to score you off my list of possibles. And that would no doubt be painful to both of us—to you, at any rate.”
“Oh, to both of us, to both of us, I’m sure. I wouldn’t dream of contradicting you, Joan. Where would you be, if the only serious candidate dropped out? Anything rather than that.”
“Well, it’s a blessing that one man seems to have some sense,” Joan admitted, turning to the others. “One can’t help liking Michael, if it’s only for the frank way he acknowledges when he’s in the wrong. Skilful handling does a lot with the most unpromising material, of course.”
Cecil leaned over in his chair and peered athwart the greenery which surrounded the nook in the winter-garden in which they were sitting.
“There’s Foxy wandering round.”
He raised his voice:
“Are you looking for us, Foxy? We’re over here.”