Lady Edna was impressed. “I wonder if there’s anything you don’t know?”
He laughed. “I only remember what I’ve read. My early wrestling with Chinese, I suppose, has trained my memory for detail. I’m also very fond of the Apocrypha. The Book of Esdras, for instance, is a well of wonderful names. I love Hieremoth and Carabasion.”
Presently she said to Godfrey: “Your father always makes me feel so humble and ignorant. Have you ever read the Apocrypha?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Neither have I. If you said you had, I should want to sink under the table. The pair of you would be too much for me.”
Her confession of ignorance delighted him as much as her display of knowledge filled him with wonder. It made her deliciously human.
When lunch was over and they went up to the drawing-room she left the elders together and sat for a while apart with him.
“You’ll go and see Lady Northby, of course,” she said.
“I should just think so,” he replied boyishly. “You see, I’m New Army and have never had a chance of meeting a General’s wife. If they’re all like that, no wonder the Army’s what it is.”
Lady Edna smiled indulgently. “She’s a dear. I thought you would fall in love with her.”