"Couldn't think of asking you to do that, Miss Katherine."
"Which, being interpreted," she said, "means that even you, with all your common sense, have not yet realised all that has occurred. Tell me: you have money put by, haven't you?"
"A trifle, Miss Katherine."
"So that you are now above us. You are better off than we are. You are a plutocrat, Weston. At any moment, some gay spark may come along on his motor cycle, wed you for the sake of your riches, take you off in his side car."
"A pity," I said, to change the subject, "that neither of you young ladies had contrived to get married before all this happened. It would have simplified matters a good deal."
"Perhaps," she remarked, "we have hitherto been too ambitious. In the new circumstances, I shall be ready to listen to any honourable proposal from a baker. No," correcting herself. "Let me not sink too low. A confectioner. A confectioner, near a school. And over military age."
"There won't be many young men left if this fighting goes on for long."
"'How happy,'" quoted Miss Katherine, "'is the blameless vestal's lot, The world forgetting, by the world forgot.' By Pope, my dear Muriel, Pope. A gentleman who was in the line of business you have recently taken up."
We managed to finish the task, and a greengrocer undertook to convey the packages to Colonel Edgington's house. I was under the impression that everything was going well and smoothly, when a telegram came from the two young women at Greenwich. "Find course of lectures indispensable. We remain in flat for a time."