"Yes," I said. "I've got a heart murmur. I don't know what the poor things been trying to say, but it's been murmuring like anything all the morning."
"Perhaps you're in love," she suggested.
"By Jove, I never thought of that. I wonder," I said, "if it's anything to do with you. If this were not such a public place you might like to put your head against my top left-hand waistcoat pocket and listen. Perhaps it's saying something about you."
"Have you taken to writing poetry about me?" she said. "That's always a sign."
"Now I come to think of it," I said, "I did feel a bit broody the other day, and hatched a line or two, but I can't say for certain that I had you in my mind. The lines ran like this:—
"Oh, glorious female, like a goddess decked,
No wonder that we crawl on bended knee—"
"Rotten," said Beatrice. "You couldn't have been thinking of me. I'm not a female."
"You have the right plumage for the hen-bird," I said. "However, what did me was 'decked.' I could only think of three rhymes, 'wrecked,' 'flecked' and 'stiff-necked.' You're not any of those by any chance?"
"There's 'circumspect', suggested Beatrice.