ervousness of that agitating entry and resuming his normal demeanour of
an experienced and well-balanced man of the world. He felt relieved that
she had gone, and yet he regretted her departure extremely, and hoped
against fear that she would soon return.

"Yes!" said Mr. Haim, as it were triumphantly, like one who had
whispered to himself during long years: "The hour will come." The hour
had come.

Mr. Haim was surprising to George. The man seemed much older in his own
parlour than at the office--his hair thinner and greyer, and his face
more wrinkled. But the surprising part of him was that he had a home and
was master in it, and possessed interests other than those of the firm
of Lucas & Enwright. George had never until that day conceived the man
apart from Russell Square. And here he was smoking a cigarette in an
easy-chair and wearing red morocco slippers, and being called 'father'
by a really stunning creature in a thin white blouse and a blue skirt.

The young girl, opening the front door, had said: "Do you want to see
father?" And instantly the words were out George had realized that she
might have said: "_Did_ you want to see father?" ... in the idiom of the
shop-girl or clerk, and that if she had said 'did' he would have been
gravely disappointed and hurt. But she had not. Of course she had not!
Of course she was incapable of such a locution, and it was silly of him
to have thought otherwise, even momentarily. She was an artist. Entirely
different from the blonde and fluffy Mrs. John Orgreave--(and a good
thing too, for Mrs. John with her eternal womanishness had got on his
nerves)--Miss Haim was without doubt just as much a lady, and probably a
jolly sight more cultured, in the true sense. Yet Miss Haim had not in
the least revealed herself to him in the hall as she indicated the
depository for his hat and stick and opened the door of the
sitting-room. She had barely smiled. Indeed she had not smiled. She had
not mentioned the weather. On the other hand, she had not been prim or
repellent. She had revealed nothing of herself. Her one feat had been to
stimulate mightily his curiosity and his imagination concerning
her--rampant enough even before he entered the house!

The house--what he saw of it--suited her and set her off, and, as she
was different from Mrs. John, so was the house different from the
polished, conventional abode of Mrs. John at Bedford Park. To George's
taste it knocked Bedford Park to smi