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to take you out myself one night!’
    â€˜If that’s an invitation it comes a little late,’ Ann smiled.
    â€˜Ah! well,’ he shrugged his stooping shoulders, ‘Fleet Street keeps me busy six nights out of seven, so work shall serve asan anodyne to my broken heart!’
    â€˜Idiot!’ she laughed. ‘You haven’t got a heart.’
    â€˜No, perhaps I haven’t, unless it’s in my stomach. The ancients believed the stomach to be the seat of all the emotions, you know—and they were right about so many things. In any case it is time for me to feed it and then go forth to grasp the nettle of my nightly toil.’ As he moved towards the door he flung a smile at her over his shoulder. ‘Bye-bye, little pansy face—good hunting to you!’
    For a time she sat alone in the lengthening shadows debating with herself the advisability of taking Gregory’s advice and scuttling back to Orford the next day, but there was her job to be considered; supposing all this pessimism proved a false alarm?—there had been isolated acts of violence and occasional rioting for the last eighteen months. If she once cleared out she could hardly expect her firm to take her back—besides she was going to see Kenyon again that evening! And unless he proved disappointing at this second meeting, she somehow felt that she would not want to leave London for the present. Still undecided, she went up to dress.
    An hour later, as she was being carried swiftly towards Charing Cross in the Underground, she wondered why Kenyon had asked her to meet him at nine o’clock. It seemed absurdly late to her—yet his letter had clearly said dinner. She wondered, too, how he would be dressed—tails or a dinner-jacket. Most of the young men she knew could not afford two sets of evening clothes, and favoured the latter as more economical for their laundry bills. She assured herself that it did not matter twopence really, but as he had suggested the Savoy it meant dancing afterwards, and she preferred not to go to pretentious places unless her escort was properly dressed.
    At Charing Cross she hopped into a taxi, since she had no intention of arriving at the Savoy on foot. As she walked through the lounge of the hotel she found that she had timed her arrival admirably, the clock showed two minutes past nine, and there at one of the small tables below the stairs Kenyon was waiting to greet her.
    In one swift glance she saw that no woman could cavil at his appearance. White tie, and a double breasted waistcoat making a sharp line across his trousers-top, his rebellious hair brushed smoothly back, and a flower in his buttonhole. ‘Really,’ thoughtAnn as she walked towards him, ‘he looks terribly distinguished, almost as though he wore dress-clothes every evening.’
    He rose as she came up. ‘My dear, you’re looking ravishing; have a cocktail?’
    â€˜Thanks, I’d love one,’ she smiled serenely as she settled herself in the chair he held for her.
    So he thought her ravishing—what fun—and really, she had never felt better than she did tonight. How fortunate that she’d decided to blow the extra twenty-five bob and have the prettier frock—it had seemed a horrible extravagance at the time but now she had no regrets. Ann’s face was flushed to a delicate pink, her eyes bright with excitement as she raised her glass in response to him across the little table.
    â€˜Your friends the Communists are making a fine to-do about the shooting in Glasgow,’ he remarked with a grin, ‘threatening all sorts of reprisals against the Government.’
    Ann reddened; somehow her Socialistic theories seemed rather futile and childish in the atmosphere of this luxury hotel. It ought, she knew, to have strengthened her conviction in the Tightness of her cause. But being honest with herself, she knew that she was enjoying every minute of it; so she