V.V.

He seemed to begin a smile at this point, and then to change his mind
about it. The smile, if such it was, ended short, as if clipped off.

"This door," he added turning to the fresh-painted portal at his elbow,
"leads to one of them.... A fair sample, I imagine. This one happens to
be a--ah--a sort of sewing-class room, I believe...."

"Oh, a sewing-class room! That must be where I was offered a position."

"Will you look at it?"

"I'd like to. Only I can't sew a bit, you see...."

She stepped exploringly through the open door, into the sort of
sewing-class room. V. Vivian walked after her; and behind him he
distinctly heard the surprised and somewhat offended voice of
the Kemper:

"Funny! I thought that was Mr. Pond I was talking to all the time."

"It's--it's a very nice place," said Cally, glancing about her as she
advanced.

Not that it mattered, but it really was not a particularly nice place,
only a rather dark and small chamber, smelling of paint and entirely
empty save for one bench.

"Not a great deal to see, as you notice," said the summer-house voice
behind her, sounding somehow changed since last year.... "Not much of a
class could sit on the bench, I fear. Or perhaps it's this next room
that's for sewing."

"Oh, I don't mind," said Cally.

And then she turned suddenly upon Mr. V.V., facing him, looking up with
a sweet, half-wistful smile such as her face had never worn before
for him.

"But tell me something about yourself.... What sort of summer have you
had?"

So he was brought to a halt, confronting in one of his donated rooms the
loveliest of the Huns; confronting, but not looking at her exactly....

"Well, it's been hot, as you know--in fact, the hottest summer since the
Weather Bureau began. That wasn't comfortable, of course. There was a
good deal of suffering, where people couldn't afford ice.... Personally,
I've happened to be so busy that the weather didn't matter--"

"That's quite ominous, isn't it, in a doctor? Has there been so much
sickness in this neighborhood?"

"Yes, there's been a lot of it. We had rather a bad typhoid epidemic,
beginning in July--not easy to check in this old district, standing
pretty much as it was before the war. I sometimes think there's no hope
of ever cleaning it out, short of a London fire.... I--I hope you've
been well?"

"Oh, yes, quite well, thank you. But is this district so bad--from a
health point of view?"

"You should see it,