“But Jerry calls you Dorrie.”
“He is privileged. He likes me.”
“And how do you know that I don’t like you?”
“You? I don’t see how you can. Very few people do.”
“Perhaps I am one of the few. At any rate, I mean to call you Dorrie. It sounds nicer between friends than ‘Miss Dora,’ doesn’t it?”
“Now you are making fun of me. And you would make even more fun of me, if I were to believe that the Earl of Greatlands wanted to be friendly with an ugly, uninteresting girl like me.”
“Isn’t Lady Elizabeth friendly with you?”
“Oh, she is an angel!”
“Well, please to remember that I am that angel’s father, and of the same species. Don’t you see my wings?”
At this we all three laughed, and we enjoyed each other’s society very well for about half an hour, during which time we had shown our visitor all sorts of things that I had never dreamed would interest an earl.