"Dear me," she returned, "you do move rather rapidly, don't you?"

"I'm an aviator, you see," he answered.

Across the table Christine was trying to be gracious and graceful while
she put up with Hickson, but she was feeling as any honest captain feels
at having a prize cut out from under his very nose.

Mrs. Ussher seeing this, decided that such methods as Nancy's ought not
to prevail; she seated herself on Max's other side, and instantly engaged
in conversation.

"Don't you think my dear little Christine is an angel?" she said, without
any encumbering subtility.

"She certainly looks like one."

"Who looks like what?" asked Mrs. Almar, from his other side. She had had
this sort of thing tried too often not to be on her guard.

Mrs. Ussher leant forward.

"Max was just saying that Christine looks like an angel."

Nancy looked at him and made a very slight grimace.

"Are you so awfully strong for angels?" she said. He laughed.

"I never met one before."