Althea said slowly,

‘I would rather not go away just now.’

‘But I think you need the change, darling. I’m not thinking about myself of course, though Dr Barrington has been urging me to get away to the sea. I am just trying to think what is best for you. You know, people will talk, and you did make yourself rather conspicuous this evening. Nettie Pimm said you were out of the room for quite half an hour with Nicholas Carey. I didn’t see you go, or I would have tried to stop you. Nettie didn’t say it at all unkindly, but I could see that she thought it a pity you should give people the opportunity to say you were running after him.’

If Mrs Graham expected this to sting Althea’s pride she was disappointed. She certainly flushed a little, but she smiled in a dreamy way which was very alarming, and she said in quite a soft kind of voice,

‘Oh, I’m not running after Nicky.’

‘People will say you are.’

‘They will be wrong.’

Thea, I don’t understand you at all. You must realize that there’s nothing quite so dead as an old flirtation. He flirted with you, and he went away for five years. Did he write even once – or so much as let us know whether he was alive or dead? He didn’t, and you know it. But he has the impertinence to come back and make you conspicuous by flirting with you all over again! Can’t you imagine what people must be saying? The least you can do is to show him that he can’t just pick you up one minute and drop you the next! I should have thought you would have had more pride!’

Althea wasn’t feeling proud, she was feeling safe. Her mother’s words were like flies that buzz on the outside of a window-pane – the window is shut against them and they can’t get in. They made a stupid noise a long way off. She was still smiling when she got to her feet. It was time to fill her mother’s hot water-bottle and to get her to bed. At the door she turned and said,

‘Please don’t worry – there’s no need. I don’t want to flirt with Nicholas, and he doesn’t want to flirt with me.’

I CAN’T THINK why you want it,’ said Ella Harrison.

Fred Worple flashed his teeth in what he considered to be a fascinating smile.

‘You don’t have to think about it at all, ducks.’

They were lunching together in town. Since a crowd of people were doing the same thing and a jazz band was playing, it was as good a place for private conversation as anyone could wish. To both of them noise, glitter and plenty to drink were the essentials of enjoyment. Mr Worple’s hint that she could mind her own business was not taken amiss. She said,

‘You know, I could help you if I had any idea of what you were driving at.’

‘I just want to buy that house – that’s all.’

‘Sure?’

‘Certain.’

‘It’s too big for you.’

‘Not when I get married and have half a dozen kids.’

There was a sharp anger in her. She spoke just a little too quickly.

‘Who is the girl?’

‘Nobody – anybody – what about Miss Althea Graham?’

She said, ‘Nonsense!’

He laughed. He had better not laugh at her like that.

‘Well, I don’t know – she’s not bad-looking. And I’ll tell you something – the house is in her name.’

‘What!’

He nodded.

‘Bert Martin let it for them last year, and it was the girl who signed the agreement. He didn’t mean to give anything away, but we were talking, and when I said, “Give me a chance and I’ll get round the old lady,” he came out with, “Well, the house belongs to Miss Graham – you’d be wasting your time.” So I thought to myself, “Fred, my boy, what about it? If you can get round an old woman you can get round a young one. Marry the girl and you get the house, free, gratis and for nothing. Money in your pocket, and nothing to pay for except a wedding ring.” What do you think of that for a bright idea?’

What Ella Harrison thought about it wouldn’t bear saying. He was kidding of course, poking at her to see if he couldn’t make her wild just like he used to do in the old days. She’d been fool enough to rise for it then, and she’d be a fool if she rose for it now. What did he want, stirring her up again like this? If she wasn’t so bored with Jack, if everything wasn’t so damned flat, she would tell him where he got off! Dangling another girl at her, even if he was only kidding! She said with an appearance of frankness,

‘She wouldn’t look at you.’

‘That’s all you know. There she is, a good-looking girl moped to death with an invalid mother, and I come along, take her out a bit, splash the money around and give her a good time – it stands to reason she’d jump at it.’

Ella shook her head. She wasn’t going to let him get that rise.

‘You’re not her sort. Besides there’s someone she was more or less engaged to, only her mother got it broken off and he went abroad, but he’s come back and from what I can make out it’s likely to be on again. Though what he sees in her…’

He laughed.

‘Oh, well, it was just a thought. I might think about cutting him out, or I mightn’t. What’s the odds so long as I get the house?’

She said, ‘I don’t know what you want it for.’

It was next day that Althea found Mr Worple at her elbow in the High Street. He said ‘Good-morning,’ and before she had any idea what he was going to do he took her shopping-bag out of her hand.

‘It’s much too heavy for you. I’ll carry it.’

She stiffened.

‘Thank you, but I’d rather…’

He didn’t give her time to finish her sentence. A smile was flashed at her.

‘Now, now, you just leave it to me. You do the shopping, and I’ll do the carrying. You don’t want a heavy bag like this pulling you all down on one side. Mustn’t spoil a figure like yours – wouldn’t do at all.’

‘Mr Worple, will you please give me back my bag.’

No one could have called Fred Worple a sensitive plant, but it was borne in upon him that he had given offence. With no more than a murmured protest he gave her the bag, but he continued to walk beside her undeterred by the fact that she neither looked at him nor spoke.

‘You know, Miss Graham, I do hope you are thinking about my offer for your house.’

After some unsuccessful small talk this obtained a reply. Althea said,

‘No, I am not thinking about it. We do not wish to sell.’

She was becoming very angry, not only with Mr Worple himself, but with Mr Jones the house-agent who had no excuse for inflicting him upon her. The house was not on his books – it was not on anybody’s books – but whereas her mother had given Mr Martin a pretext for introducing the Blounts, nobody had given, or would give, Mr Jones any pretext at all. Her colour rose brightly and Mr Worple’s next remark incurred the snub direct.

‘I am really not prepared to discuss the matter, either now or at any other time. Good-morning!’ She turned as if to enter the post office and almost ran into Nicholas Carey, who was coming out.

Mr Worple, observing the encounter, was not so much discouraged as annoyed. She would give him the brush-off, would she? Well, they would see about that. He had a comfortable theory that girls liked to play hard-to-get, and that rudeness was really an encouraging sign. They put it on to make you keener, and if they appeared to be friendly with somebody else it was just a stunt to play you up. He saw Nicholas Carey take over the shopping-bag which he himself had not been allowed to carry and watched them to the corner of Sefton Street, where they turned and went into the café.

Nicholas said,

‘This is new since my time. Let’s get one of the green rabbit-hutches right at the back – the end one if there isn’t someone there already.’

The alcoves really were rather like hutches – something about the way the green draperies were arranged. The end one was vacant and they took possession of it. When Nicholas had ordered coffee he said,