“In heaven’s name, Nirupa!” Gilly laughed, “What Victorian pot-boiler did you learn your English from anyway? You sound like a Baptist accountant.”
“If I knew what a ‘pot-boiler’ was I might be able to answer you,” the girl told her, effecting mock indignation, knowing that between the serious, clipped and precise, English of the former sepoy grandfather who had taught her and the works of the Bronte’s and Trollope he had given her to read, Gilly was very much on the right track.
“Anyhow,” Gilly resumed, “to get back to where we were when we took this delightful little diversion, you need have no worries on the score of it affecting us too much.”
The girl, Gilly noted, looked relieved but also a little concerned by the ‘too much’.
“We will remain friends-with-benefits,” she went on, “b
