To my consternation Big Ears was announced. He soon found his way to me and concentrated his gaze upon me until I thought I should go off into yelps of nervous laughter. The Lord be praised, Edmée came to the rescue. She needed someone to set against the naval boys, and Big Ears was the nearest insect.

“That’s what I call a wind in your favour,” said Derek, as he slipped into a seat beside me. “What’s this about you leaving us so soon? I had planned all sorts of things for you next week.”

“I should have been here next week,” I murmured. Then he said I was the jolliest little chum who had been in the house for ages. “All sorts of freaks impose on the Mater, but I have felt that perhaps she imposed on you, letting you carry all this social blither without any armour, so to speak.”

I had heard him making fun of my lack of wardrobe and my unsophisticatedness. “I’ve felt that I was chasing you from home,” I said.

“I always go out as much as possible when Edmée comes to stay. She’d jolly well have me up for breach of promise, if I wasn’t too slippery. I warn Gaddy to put nothing in writing. I’m sick of her family too. It’s all a fellow can do to put up with the breadth and antiquity of his own without having someone else’s mouldy pedigree thrust down his throat with the breakfast bacon and dinner soup.”

“Oh, but I think Edmée is lovely.”

“So does she, but all but herself recover from the delusion in time. If she doesn’t soon hook a fish she’ll be passée. Let’s tackle Big Ears together. I’ll be best man if you like.”

This was too much of a finish on the day and I could not keep my lips from quivering. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I’ll take the beastly little green-grocer out the back and we’ll give him the order of the turnip.”

He beckoned to Big Ears and extracted me quietly through the hind door and took us upstairs to his own snuggery. I said I wanted to return safely into his own hands the lovely jewellery that Big Ears had so kindly lent me, as I was going home.

“And I’ve just been telling her not to take any notice of you,” chirped Derek, “that you are such a devil of a fellow with the girls, you have half-a-dozen on the string at once. Sybylla is as serious as a pest, so I hope you have not been flirting with her.”

Derek was an audacious wag. I left the situation to him. He represented me as too young and simple to be pestiferated with the confisticated boredom of marriage. “Why, even I would not dare to flirt with Sybylla. I’m letting her mature unmolested. I love her as a sister, but no larks with such a clever young lady.” If only he had flirted with me just a little, how delightful it would have been. He was so full of fun that he amused everyone. People always helped him laugh, but anyone who attempted to laugh at him came a cropper.