Was she talking about me at all at dinner, Bertie?”
“Oh, yes.”
“What did she say?”
“I remember one thing. She said she thought you good-looking.”
Young Bingo closed his eyes in a sort of ecstasy. Then he picked up the notebook.
“Pop off now, old man, there’s a good chap,” he said, in a hushed, faraway voice. “I’ve got a bit of writing to do.”
“Writing?”
“Poetry, if you must know. I wish the dickens,” said young Bingo, not without some bitterness, “she had been christened something except Cynthia. There isn’t a dam’ word in the language it rhymes with. Ye gods, how I could have spread myself if she had only been called Jane!”
Bright and early next morning, as I lay in bed blinking at the sunlight on the dressing-table and wondering when Jeeves was going to show up with a cup of tea, a heavy weight descended on my toes, and the voice of young Bingo polluted the air. The blighter had apparently risen with the lark.
“Leave me,” I said, “I would be alone. I can’t see anybody till I’ve had my tea.”
“When Cynthia smiles,” said young Bingo, “the skies are blue; the world takes on a roseate hue: birds in the garden trill and sing, and Joy is king of everything, when Cynthia smiles.”
He coughed, changing gears. “When Cynthia frowns—”
“What the devil are you