“Yes, I see it all now, when it is too late; but as you have remarked, and as I have admitted, I am extremely dense, and unless a thing is as plain as the funnel—to use your own simile—I am very apt to overlook it. Sometimes I don’t see it even then. For instance, when you are walking by my side, I am just as likely to run into the funnel as to walk past it.”
She laughed most good naturedly at this observation, and replied:
“Oh, you do say things very charmingly, and I will forgive you, even if you refuse to apologize.”
“But I don’t refuse to apologize. I do apologize—most abjectly—for my stupidity.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right. Perhaps, when everything’s said and done, it was my own fault in not giving you warning. Next time I want you to stand by me, I’ll have it all typewritten nice and plain, and will hand the paper to you twenty-four hours ahead.”
“That would be very kind of you, Miss Hemster; and, besides, you would then possess documentary evidence of the stupidity of an Englishman.”
“Oh, we don’t need to have documentary evidence for that,” she replied brightly; “but I tell you I was mad clear through when I knew what you had said to my father. I raised storm enough to sink the yacht.”
“Did you?”
“Didn’t I? Why, you knew I did.”
“I hadn’t the slightest suspicion of it.”