“Topping!” he said spaciously. “No other word for it! All wool and a yard wide! Precisely as mother makes it! You look like a thingummy.”
“How splendid! All my life I’ve wanted to look like a thingummy, but somehow I’ve never been able to manage it.”
“A wood-nymph!” exclaimed Freddie, in a burst of unwonted imagery.
“Wood-nymphs didn’t wear creations.”
“Well, you know what I mean!” He looked at her with honest admiration. “Dash it, Jill, you know, there’s something about you! You’re—what’s the word?—you’ve got such small bones!”
“Ugh! I suppose it’s a compliment, but how horrible it sounds! It makes me feel like a skeleton.”
“I mean to say, you’re—you’re dainty!”
“That’s much better.”
“You look as if you weighed about an ounce and a half! You look like a bit of thistledown! You’re a little fairy princess, dash it!”
“Freddie! This is eloquence!” Jill raised her left hand, and twiddled a ringed finger ostentatiously. “Er—you do realize that I’m bespoke, don’t you, and that my heart, alas, is another’s? Because you sound as if you were going to propose.”