"Coming to Blandings!"
"Freddie invited me last night. I think it was done by way of interest on the money he owed me; but he did it and I accepted."
"But, George, my dear boy, do you never read the etiquette books and the hints in the Sunday papers on how to be the perfect gentleman? Don't you know you can't be a man's guest and take advantage of his hospitality to try to steal his fiancee away from him?"
"Watch me."
A dreamy look came into Aline's eyes. "I wonder what it feels like, being a countess," she said.
"You will never know." George looked at her pityingly. "My poor girl," he said, "have you been lured into this engagement in the belief that pop-eyed Frederick, the Idiot Child, is going to be an earl some day? You have been stung! Freddie is not the heir. His older brother, Lord Bosham, is as fit as a prize-fighter and has three healthy sons. Freddie has about as much chance of getting the title as I have."
"George, your education has been sadly neglected. Don't you know that the heir to the title always goes on a yachting cruise, with his whole family, and gets drowned—and the children too? It happens in every English novel you read."
"Listen, Aline! Let us get this thing straight: I have been in love with you since I wore knickerbockers. I proposed to you at your first dance—"
"Very clumsily."
"But sincerely. Last year, when I found that you had gone to
England, I came on after you as soon as the firm could spare me.
And I found you engaged to this Freddie excrescence."