s
Walker, Mr. Ryzors. He is really 'appy to myke your acquaintance, Miss
Walker, though at first sight he may not appear so. Wot you might be
apt to mistyke for coldness is merely 'is intense reserve."

"Oh, dry up, Spinks."

No, Mr. Rickman was certainly not in his vein this evening. He made no
apology whatever for his lateness. He ignored the commercial
gentleman's "Good-evening, Rickman." As he slipped into his place
between Miss Walker and Miss Roots he forgot his usual "Busy to-day at
the Museum, Miss Roots?"--a question that recognized her as a fellow
worker in the fields of literature, thus lightening the obscurity that
hid her labours there.

And for Miss Flossie's timid greeting (the lifting of her upper lip
that just showed two dear little white teeth) he gave back a reluctant
and embarrassed smile. He used to like sitting by Flossie because she
was so pretty and so plump. He used to be sorry for her, because she
worked so hard, and, though plump, was so pathetically anaemic and so
shy. Critically considered, her body, in spite of its plumpness, was a
little too small for her head, and her features were a little too
small for her face, but then they were so very correct, as correct as
her demeanour and the way she did her hair. She had clusters and curls
and loops and coils of hair, black as her eyes, which were so black
that he couldn't tell the iris from the pupil. Not that Flossie had
ever let him try. And now he had forgotten whether they were black or
blue, forgotten everything about them and her. Flossie might be as
correct as Flossie pleased, she simply didn't matter.

When she saw him smile she turned up her eyes to the chromo-lithograph
again. The little clerk brought with her from the City an air of
incorruptible propriety, assumed for purposes of self-protection, and
at variance with her style of hair-dressing and the blueness and
gaiety of her blouse. With all that it implied and took for granted,
it used to strike him as pathetic. But now, he didn't find Flossie in
the least pathetic.

He was waiting for the question which was bound to come.

It came from Spinks, and in a form more horrible than any that he had
imagined.

"I say, Rickets, wot did you want all those shirts for down in
Devonshire?"

Instead of replying Rickets blew his nose, making his
pocket-handkerchief conceal as much of his face as possible. At that
moment he caught Miss Bishop staring at him, and if there was one
th