"No, bless his heart! He's fallen head over ears in love and is engaged and is going to marry!"
"Who?"
"Our stenographer!"
"Rix!"
"Certainly.... She's pretty and sweet and good and most worthy; and she's as crazy about Dankmere as he is about her.... Really, Strelsa, she's a charming young girl, and she'll make as pretty a countess as any of the Dankmeres have married in many a generation."
Strelsa's lip curled: "I don't doubt that. They were always a horrid cock-fighting, prize-fighting, dissolute lot, weren't they?"
"Something like that. But the present Dankmere is a good sort—really he is, Strelsa. And as for Jessie Vining, she's sweet. You'll be nice to them, won't you?"
She said: "I'd be nice to them anyway. But now that you ask me to I'll be whatever you wish."
"You are a corker," he said almost tenderly; but with a slight smile she kept her hands out of his reach.
"We mustn't degenerate into sentimentalism just because we're glad to see each other," she said so calmly that he did not notice the tremor in her voice. "And by the way, how is Mr. Westguard?"