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been ashamed to have been seen abroad in her company then.

“How do you like her?” Grace had asked him later in the evening.

“Not my style, sweetheart,” he had replied, somewhat loftily. “Too much polish and not enough brains.”

“Didn’t she take enough interest in your work, Jimmy.”

“It’s not that—not at all. Why should she? It’s just that—that—well, it’s another of these natural antipathies, I suppose.”

“Oh, I think she likes you, Jimmy, although she did seem rather more stand-offish than I ever remember her with a strange man. Perhaps she is determined to take no risks with my handsome husband.”

He had grinned at that.

“A lot she knows about love,” he had scoffed. “That sort of woman doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”

“Perhaps she thinks similarly about you, Jimmy. After all, you only write about it.”

“Is that so? Come here, young lady, and I’ll show you whether I only write about it. Come over here.”

She had come to him obediently; and in neither of their hearts had there been any fear that any person on earth could ever alter the course of their love.

For some time after that he had excused himself on the plea of work whenever Patricia Weybourn called to spend an evening, and had listened to the two women in the next room chattering like magpies as he smoked and made leisurely notes for further love-stories.

“It’s rude to run away every time Pat comes,” Grace had protested one afternoon.

“I know. It’s how she makes me feel.”

“But you mustn’t offend her, for my sake, Jimmy.”