“And what is a romantic?” Karina asked.
“Someone who is always trying to matchmake in one way or another,” Garland said. “They cannot bear to see an unattached man or an unattached woman. They just have to link them up together somehow. As a matter of fact Sadie has tried it before, but I have a special sales resistance to that lady’s ideas.”
Karina sipped the champagne. Perhaps it was the good dinner that she had enjoyed and the excellent wine that gave her the courage to say,
“You sound very fierce and frightening. Is that how you manage to keep all the lovely ladies at bay?”
For a moment Garland glared at her as if he thought that she had been impertinent and then he laughed.
“You are incorrigible,” he said. “And, what is more, you make me feel rather a fool. One thing, you have ma
