With a haggard face, but without a word, she handed me the buff form, and sat silently while I read the various explanations and directions.
"Francesca," I said, "you are doing wrong. It says that the form must be filled up and signed by a responsible member of the household. Now you can say that you're brilliant or amiable or handsome or powerful or domineering, but can you honestly say you're responsible? No, you can't. So I shall keep this form and fill it up myself in due time, and leave you to look after the hens or talk to the gardener."
"Anybody," she said, "who can wring a smile from a gardener, as I have this morning, is entitled to be considered responsible. Infirm of purpose! hand me the paper."
"Very well," I said, "you can have the paper; only remember that, if we get fined a thousand pounds for transgressing the Defence of the Realm Act, you mustn't ask me for the money. You must pay it yourself."
"I'll chance that," she said, as I handed back the paper.
"Now then, we shan't be long. Which of these two addresses shall we have?"
"How do you mean?"
"Why, they tell you to fill in the address in capital letters, and then they give you two to pick from. One is 1000, Upper Grosvenor Street, W. 1—"
"It is a longer street than I had supposed."
"And the other," she continued, "is 17, Church Lane, Middlewich, Cheshire."