“Just what I was thinking a little while ago. But still, if he tells you my secrets, it’s only fair that he should tell me yours.”
Sam swallowed somewhat convulsively.
“If you really want to know what happened, I’ll tell you. I did not kiss that ghastly Blair pipsqueak. She kissed me.”
“What?”
“She kissed me,” repeated Sam doggedly. “I had been laying it on pretty thick about how much I admired her work, and suddenly she said, ‘Oh, you dear boy!’ and flung her loathsome arms round my neck. What could I do? I might have uppercut her as she bored in, but, short of that, there wasn’t any way of stopping her.”
A look of shocked sympathy came into Kay’s face.
“It’s monstrous,” she said, “that you should be going about at the mercy of every female novelist who takes it into her head to insult you. You need somebody to look after you, to protect you——”
Sam’s dignity, never a very durable article, collapsed.
“You’re quite right,” he said. “Well then——”
Kay shook her head.