Ted looked doubtfully at it, and shook his head.
“No, thanks,” he said; “I don’t often smoke cigars. I’m very fond of a pipe now and then—after breakfast, you know; but cigars are a little too much for me. Light?”
He held me a light, and puffed elegantly at his cigarette. Then continued thoughtfully:
“The worst of women is,” he said, “they seem to grow up so awfully quick, you know. Why, Nellie Bassishaw there, you know—we used to be rather flames when we were young. A year or two since, that is. We’re not so very old yet, you know, Mr. Butterfield,” he added, with a slightly conscious laugh.
“Call me Butterfield,” I said softly and encouragingly.
“I don’t mind saying,” he continued, “I was awfully stuck a while back. I used to walk round the house at nights, you know—darned silly, of course—and she used to drop me notes from her bedroom window. Of course you won’t say a word to any of the men, but at one time she wanted me to elope.”
“Indeed!” I said. “You surprise me. In that case I have greatly misjudged her. She is not so young as I thought she was.”
“No, she’s not really, Butterfield,” he said eagerly. “She’s awfully clever and grown up, and all that—that is, she was when we were so thick. Some time ago, you know.”
I nodded. I didn’t want to interrupt him.
“And she’s going to have her hair up next birthday,” he went on, “and then she’ll be quite grown up. I’m a bit sorry it’s all off.”