“Mein kleiner Herr Doktor!” she began sweetly. They were still standing where they had been when Barker arrested their waltzing. Latham caught her and shook her. “Bitte erlauben Sie! ich bin nicht eine Ihrer armen Kranken und verbitte mir Auftreten. Jetzt sind Sie erzürnt, über nichts, wahrhaftig nichts. Ach! die Männer, wie sind Sie dumm!” She poured out at him. It irritated the Englishman to be chattered to in intimate German, and Angela Hilary delighted in doing it. She had done it to him many times more than once, and the more he squirmed the more eloquent, the swifter grew her German. She had spoken to him in the hated language all through an otherwise dull dinner-party, a dour Bishop on her other side, an indignant and very bony suffragette just across the table. She had done it at Church Parade, and at Harrods (she had dragged him out shopping twice), in the Abbey and in the packed stalls of the Garrick.
“Hush, or I’ll make you,” he warned her now. He intended her to say, “How?” And she knew it and smiled. But she said nothing of the sort—but, almost gravely, “Oh! but I’m happy!”
“You look it.”
“So happy. So glad.”
“It suits you,” he said. “Do you know, I rather intend to try it myself.”
“It?”
“Happiness.”
Angela flushed. “Shall we dance some more?” she said quickly.
Latham picked her up and put her into a chair. “Barker’s face was enough. I prefer to avoid Mrs. Leavitt’s.”
Mrs. Hilary looked up at him wickedly. “Please, must I stay-put?”