“I heard him at the Albert Hall last week,” said Flossie. “He’s quite wonderful.” “We are but poor men,” he said. “What can we do? Of what use are such as we?”!

It would be rather pleasant. There was a little place at Meudon, she remembered. The plane trees would just be in full leaf. “What’s the matter with my tie?” he asked. “Wrong colour?”

“I shall ask you to marry me when your hair is white,” he said. “May I?” The summer was propitious. Phillips knew his London well, and how to get away from it. There were winding lanes in Hertfordshire, Surrey hills and commons, deep, cool, bird-haunted woods in Buckingham. Each week there was something to look forward to, something to plan for and manoeuvre. The sense of adventure, a spice of danger, added zest. She still knocked frequently, as before, at the door of the hideously-furnished little house in North Street; but Mrs. Phillips no longer oppressed her as some old man of the sea she could never hope to shake off from her shoulders. The flabby, foolish face, robbed of its terrors, became merely pitiful. She found herself able to be quite gentle and patient with Mrs. Phillips. Even the sloppy kisses she came to bear without a shudder down her spine. “What about the other people irritating us?” suggested Joan.