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“I cannot–I will not accept such sacrifice,” exclaimed the stranger; “the three pound ten I can well afford.”

“Two pound ten are my terms,” snapped Mrs. Pennycherry. “If you are bent on paying more, you can go elsewhere. You’ll find plenty to oblige you.”

Her vehemence must have impressed the stranger. “We will not contend further,” he smiled. “I was merely afraid that in the goodness of your heart–“

“Oh, it isn’t as good as all that,” growled Mrs. Pennycherry.

“I am not so sure,” returned the stranger. “I am somewhat suspicious of you. But wilful woman must, I suppose, have her way.”

The stranger held out his hand, and to Mrs. Pennycherry, at that moment, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to take it as if it had been the hand of an old friend and to end the interview with a pleasant laugh–though laughing was an exercise not often indulged in by Mrs. Pennycherry.

Mary Jane was standing by the window, her hands folded in front of her, when Mrs. Pennycherry re-entered the kitchen. By standing close to the window one caught a glimpse of the trees in Bloomsbury Square and through their bare branches of the sky beyond.

“There’s nothing much to do for the next half hour, till Cook comes back. I’ll see to the door if you’d like a run out?” suggested Mrs. Pennycherry.

“It would be nice,” agreed the girl so soon as she had recovered power of speech; “it’s just the time of day I like.”

“Don’t be longer than the half hour,” added Mrs. Pennycherry.

Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square, assembled after dinner in the drawing-room, discussed the stranger with that freedom and frankness characteristic of Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square, towards the absent.

“Not what I call a smart young man,” was the opinion of Augustus Longcord, who was something in the City.

“Thpeaking for mythelf,” commented his partner Isidore, “hav’n’th any uthe for the thmart young man. Too many of him, ath it ith.”

“Must be pretty smart if he’s one too many for you,” laughed his partner.

There was this to be said for the repartee of Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square: it was simple of construction and easy of comprehension.

“Well it made me feel good just looking at him,” declared Miss Kite, the highly coloured. “It was his clothes, I suppose–made me think of Noah and the ark–all that sort of thing.”

“It would be clothes that would make you think–if anything,” drawled the languid Miss Devine. She was a tall, handsome girl, engaged at the moment in futile efforts to recline with elegance and comfort combined upon a horsehair sofa. Miss Kite, by reason of having secured the only easy-chair, was unpopular that evening; so that Miss Devine’s remark received from the rest of the company more approbation than perhaps it merited.

“Is that intended to be clever, dear, or only rude?” Miss Kite requested to be informed.

“Both,” claimed Miss Devine.

“Myself? I must confess,” shouted the tall young lady’s father, commonly called the Colonel, “I found him a fool.”

“I noticed you seemed to be getting on very well together,” purred his wife, a plump, smiling little lady.

“Possibly we were,” retorted the Colonel. “Fate has accustomed me to the society of fools.”

“Isn’t it a pity to start quarrelling immediately after dinner, you two,” suggested their thoughtful daughter from the sofa, “you’ll have nothing left to amuse you for the rest of the evening.”

“He didn’t strike me as a conversationalist,” said the lady who was cousin to a baronet; “but he did pass the vegetables before he helped himself. A little thing like that shows breeding.”

“Or that he didn’t know you and thought maybe you’d leave him half a spoonful,” laughed Augustus the wit.

“What I can’t make out about him–” shouted the Colonel.

The stranger entered the room.

The Colonel, securing the evening paper, retired into a corner. The highly coloured Kite, reaching down from the mantelpiece a paper fan, held it coyly before her face. Miss Devine sat upright on the horse-hair sofa, and rearranged her skirts.