“I love doing that,” said he. “I’ve never done it for any other woman in my life.”
She arched her eyebrows. “Does his Sultanship think he’s conferring an unprecedented honour on a poor woman?”
“Oh, Edna!” His boyish face flushed suddenly. “You know what I mean. I never dreamed that a wonderful woman would ever dream of taking anything from my lips to hers. Look.” He lit another cigarette and held it out to her. “Let me have yours.”
“Baby!” she said, making the exchange.
All of which imbecility was very bad and sad and mad, but to the united youth in the punt it was peculiarly agreeable.
“What a difference from last week-end,” she said, contentedly, after a while.
“What happened then?”
“I had all the stuff-boxes in London down, Edgar included.”
“And my venerable sire. I remember. I was at the War Office all Sunday. And it poured with rain. What did you do with them?”
“I stroked them and fed them and put them through their little tricks,” she laughed. Then she added more seriously, “It happened to be a very important day for your father. The Government has gone crazy on finding out new forceful men—and clearing out the incompetent political hacks. Edgar’s just hanging on by the skin of his teeth, you know. Well, they’ve discovered your remarkable father, and last week-end they practically fixed it up with him. A new Ministry of Propaganda. Oh!” she laughed again. “I didn’t have such a bad time after all. But”—she sighed—“this is better. Don’t let us think of wars or politics or Edgars and such horrible things.” She threw her cigarette into the water, and bent down to the basket. “Let us lunch.”