“That was an awfully jolly weekend I had with you at Chimneys,” said Jimmy. “I mean it would have been awfully jolly if it hadn’t been for poor old Gerry kicking the bucket. Jolly nice girls.”

“I find girls very perplexing,” said Lady Coote. “Not romantic, you know. Why, I embroidered some handkerchiefs for Sir Oswald with my own hair when we were engaged.”

“Did you?” said Jimmy. “How marvellous. But I suppose girls haven’t got long enough hair to do that nowadays.”

“That’s true,” admitted Lady Coote. “But, oh, it shows in lots of other ways. I remember when I was a girl, one of my⁠—well, my young men⁠—picked up a handful of gravel, and a girl who was with me said at once that he was treasuring it because my feet had trodden on it. Such a pretty idea, I thought. Though it turned out afterwards that he was taking a course of mineralogy⁠—or do I mean geology?⁠—at a technical school. But I liked the idea⁠—and stealing a girl’s handkerchief and treasuring it⁠—all those sort of things.”