He looked at me queerly then, and he said:
"Nora, I'm 'dippy' about you."
"Is that slang for love, Roger?" I asked, which made him laugh, and then he tried to frown at me; but he could not. So he changed the subject abruptly, and made me tell him about all the things that had happened to me while he was away.
He said I was a "precious angel" for giving up Bennet, and that Butler was a "conceited pup," and I was a "little idiot" to mind anything he said. He wished he had been there. He said Mrs. Martin was a sycophant and a kowtowing old snob, and that he knew her well; and as for my going on the stage! One would think I was considering jumping off the face of the earth.
I told him he was pretty nearly as bad as the little Japanese, and he laughed and said:
"That Jap's all right. By George! I like his idea. It would give me peculiar satisfaction to wring the necks of one or two people we know," and he clapped his fist into his hand.
I said mischievously:
"Well, you know that Jap hated those enemies of mine because he loved me."
Roger chuckled, and said I might sit on that stool and hint till doomsday, but he was not going to tell me he loved me till he was good and ready.
"When will that be?" I asked, and he said solemnly, with mock gravity: