st's coconut while he was asleep, and then went
swanking about the place like a Girl Guide. No wonder they say, 'Oh,
woman, woman!'"

"Who?"

"The chaps who do. Coo, what a sex! But you aren't proposing to keep this
up, of course?"

"Keep what up?"

"This rot of being engaged to Gussie."

"I certainly am."

"Just to make Tuppy look silly."

"Do you think he looks silly?"

"I do."

"So he ought to."

I began to get the idea that I wasn't making real headway. I remember
when I won that Scripture-knowledge prize, having to go into the facts
about Balaam's ass. I can't quite recall what they were, but I still
retain a sort of general impression of something digging its feet in and
putting its ears back and refusing to co-operate; and it seemed to me
that this was what Angela was doing now. She and Balaam's ass were, so to
speak, sisters under the skin. There's a word beginning with r----"re"
something----"recal" something--No, it's gone. But what I am driving at is
that is what this Angela was showing herself.

"Silly young geezer," I said.

She pinkened.

"I'm not a silly young geezer."

"You are a silly young geezer. And, what's more, you know it."

"I don't know anything of the kind."

"Here you are, wrecking Tuppy's life, wrecking Gussie's life, all for the
sake of a cheap score."

"Well, it's no business of yours."

I sat on this promptly:

"No business of mine when I see two lives I used to go to school with
wrecked? Ha! Besides, you know you're potty about Tuppy."

"I'm not!"

"Is that so? If I had a quid for every time I've seen you gaze at him
with the lovelight in your eyes----"

She gazed at me, but without the lovelight.

"Oh, for goodness sake, go away and boil your head, Bertie!"

I drew myself up.

"That," I replied, with dignity, "is just what I am going to go away and
boil. At least, I mean, I shall now leave you. I have said my say."

"Good."

"But permit me to add----"

"I won't."

"Very good," I said coldly. "In that case, tinkerty tonk."

And I meant it to sting.

"Moody" and "discouraged" were about the two adjectives you would have
selected to describe me as I left the summer-house. It would be idle to
deny that I had expected better results from this little chat.

I was surprised at Angela. Odd how you never realize that every girl is
at heart a vicious specimen until something goes wrong with her love
affair. This cousin and I had been meeting freely sin