“I suppose you’ve often been told that you’re as lovely as the girl who was the cause of the Trojan War?”

“What a way of breaking the ice!” he thought to himself, and felt a pang of mental humiliation. “If the wench is going to dull my wits to this extent, I’ll miss my chance and be just where I was yesterday.” Under cover of what Darnley had called the girl’s terrible passivity, which was indeed just then like the quiescence of a great unpicked white phlox in a sun-warmed garden, he lit his cigarette and ransacked his brain for a line of action.

Desperately he hit upon the most obvious one. “Have you got anything to put on within reach?” he whispered rapidly. “I want to see something more of you. Let’s step out while we’ve got the chance and go for a stroll somewhere!”