"Er—no," I said hastily. "The man's an unmitigated scoundrel. He ought to be divorced or something. What anniversary was it?"
"Our wedding-day," she said with a sob in the voice.
"Heavens!" I said. "Oh, the dastardly ruffian!"
"You wouldn't forget your wedding-day, would you?"
"Never!" I said hoarsely.
"You're quite rather nice," she sighed.
"You're adorable," I said readily.
"How lovely! My husband never says things like that." And she leant against my shoulder.
We got on rather well after that. We had lunch in an inn garden, where you could smell lavender and sweet peas and roses and where there were box hedges turned under magical spells into giant birds. We discovered a stream in a wood with hart's-tongue fern growing along its banks. I picked her armfuls of wild roses.
"It's to make up," I said, "because your brute of a husband forgot your wedding-day."