“Of course I don’t—but somehow we got on to the subject, and she showed a more intelligent appreciation of the state of naval affairs than any man I’ve met for a long time! As for those superficial, theoretical donkeys at the Club——”
“And what else, darling?” said Etta, who had often heard about the donkeys, but now was dying to hear about Clementina. “Do tell me what she talked about. She must have talked about me. Didn’t she?”
“About you! I’ve told you.” He took her chin in his hand—she was sitting on a footstool, her arms about his knee.
“You can’t have told me everything, dear.”
“I think she informed me that her selection of a husband for you was a damned sight better than mine—I beg your pardon, my dear, she didn’t say ‘damned’—and then the little girl you’re always talking of came in, and the rabbit-skinner seemed to turn into an ordinary sort of woman and took me up, and, in a way, threw me down on the floor to play with the child.”
“What did you play at, dad? When I was little you used to pretend to swallow a fork. Did you swallow a fork?”
The iron features relaxed into a smile.
“I did, my dear, and it was the cold pie fork, wiped on a bit of newspaper. And last of all, what do you think she said?”
“No one on earth could guess, dear, what Clementina might have said.”
“She actually asked me to sit for a crayon sketch. Said my face was interesting to her as an artist, and she would like to make a study of it for her own pleasure. Now what pleasure could anybody on earth find in looking at my ugly old mug?”