t me without a word, with her face flushed and her eyes
alight, and I bent down and kissed her lips. She leant back to put
an arm about me, drew my face to her and kissed me again and again. I
lifted her and held her in my arms. She gave a little smothered cry to
feel herself so held.

Never before had I known the quality of passionate kisses.

Somebody became audible in the shop outside.

We started back from one another with flushed faces and bright and
burning eyes.

"We can't talk here," I whispered with a confident intimacy. "Where do
you go at five?"

"Along the Embankment to Charing Cross," she answered as intimately.
"None of the others go that way..."

"About half-past five?"

"Yes, half-past five..."

The door from the shop opened, and she sat down very quickly.

"I'm glad," I said in a commonplace voice, "that these new typewriters
are all right."

I went into the inner office and routed out the paysheet in order to
find her name--Effie Rink. And did no work at all that afternoon. I
fretted about that dingy little den like a beast in a cage.

When presently I went out, Effie was working with an extraordinary
appearance of calm--and there was no look for me at all....

We met and had our talk that evening, a talk in whispers when there was
none to overhear; we came to an understanding. It was strangely unlike
any dream of romance I had ever entertained.

VII

I came back after a week's absence to my home again--a changed man.
I had lived out my first rush of passion for Effie, had come to a
contemplation of my position. I had gauged Effie's place in the scheme
of things, and parted from her for a time. She was back in her place at
Raggett Street after a temporary indisposition. I did not feel in any
way penitent or ashamed, I know, as I opened the little cast-iron gate
that kept Marion's front grader and Pampas Grass from the wandering dog.
Indeed, if anything, I felt as if I had vindicated some right that had
been in question. I came back to Marion with no sense of wrong-doing at
all with, indeed, a new friendliness towards her. I don't know how it
may be proper to feel on such occasions; that is how I felt.

I followed her in our drawing-room, standing beside the tall lamp-stand
that half filled the bay as though she had just turned from watching for
me at the window. There was something in her pale face that arrested me.
She looked as if she had not been sleeping. She did not come forward