I asked what the gramophone was playing. He looked respectfully shocked.
"Why, it's 'The Rosary,' sir."
After we had left him, Betty said:
"That's the third time they've asked for it to-day. They've got mixed up with the name, you see. They're beautiful children, aren't they?"
I should have called them sentimental idiots, but Betty saw much clearer than I did. She accompanied me back to the corridor and to the Committee Room door. I was a quarter of an hour late.
"I've kept the precious Rayon d'Ors for myself," she said. "How could you have the heart to cut them?"
"I would have cut out my heart itself, for the matter of that," said I, "if it would have done any good."
She smiled in a forlorn kind of way.
"Don't do that, for I shall want it inside you more than ever now. Tell me, how is Tufton?"
"Tufton—?"