out of a rubber duck.

"Ah, yes. Life is very sad, isn't it?"

"It is for some people. This aching heart, for instance."

"Those wistful eyes of hers! Drenched irises. And they used to dance like
elves of delight. And all through a foolish misunderstanding about a
shark. What a tragedy misunderstandings are. That pretty romance broken
and over just because Mr. Glossop would insist that it was a flatfish."

I saw that she had got the wires crossed.

"I'm not talking about Angela."

"But her heart is aching."

"I know it's aching. But so is somebody else's."

She looked at me, perplexed.

"Somebody else? Mr. Glossop's, you mean?"

"No, I don't."

"Mrs. Travers's?"

The exquisite code of politeness of the Woosters prevented me clipping
her one on the ear-hole, but I would have given a shilling to be able to
do it. There seemed to me something deliberately fat-headed in the way
she persisted in missing the gist.

"No, not Aunt Dahlia's, either."

"I'm sure she is dreadfully upset."

"Quite. But this heart I'm talking about isn't aching because of Tuppy's
row with Angela. It's aching for a different reason altogether. I mean to
say--dash it, you know why hearts ache!"

She seemed to shimmy a bit. Her voice, when she spoke, was whispery: "You
mean--for love?"

"Absolutely. Right on the bull's-eye. For love."

"Oh, Mr. Wooster!"

"I take it you believe in love at first sight?"

"I do, indeed."

"Well, that's what happened to this aching heart. It fell in love at
first sight, and ever since it's been eating itself out, as I believe the
expression is."

There was a silence. She had turned away and was watching a duck out on
the lake. It was tucking into weeds, a thing I've never been able to
understand anyone wanting to do. Though I suppose, if you face it
squarely, they're no worse than spinach. She stood drinking it in for a
bit, and then it suddenly stood on its head and disappeared, and this
seemed to break the spell.

"Oh, Mr. Wooster!" she said again, and from the tone of her voice, I
could see that I had got her going.

"For you, I mean to say," I proceeded, starting to put in the fancy
touches. I dare say you have noticed on these occasions that the
difficulty is to plant the main idea, to get the general outline of the
thing well fixed. The rest is mere detail work. I don't say I became glib
at this juncture, but I certainly became a dashed glibber than I had
been.

"It's having the d