As soon as the bacon was well under way, and Millie, her lymphatic aid,

His gloved hands were clasped behind him, and he seemed to be lost in thought. She noticed that the melted snow that still sprinkled his shoulders dripped upon her carpet.

“Can I take your hat and coat, sir,” she said, “and give them a good dry in the kitchen?”

“No,” he said, without turning.

She was not sure she had heard him, and was about to repeat her question.

He turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder. “I prefer to keep them on,” he said with emphasis; and she noticed that he wore big blue spectacles with side–lights,

“Very well, sir,” she said. “As you like. In a bit the room will be warmer.”

He made no answer, and turned his face away from her again, and Mrs. Hall, feeling that her conversational advances were ill–timed,

“Your lunch is served, sir.”

“Thank you,” he said at the same time, and did not stir until she was closing the door. Then he swung round and approached the table with a certain eagerness.

As she went behind the bar to the kitchen she heard a sound repeated at regular intervals. Chirk, chirk, chirk, it went, the sound of a spoon being whisked rapidly round a basin. “That girl!” she said. “There! I clean forgot it. It’s her being so long!” And while she herself finished mixing the mustard, she gave Millie a few verbal stabs

She rapped and entered promptly. As she did so her visitor moved quickly, so that she got but a glimpse of a white object disappearing behind the table. It would seem he was picking something from the floor. She rapped down the mustard–pot on the table, and then she noticed the overcoat and hat had been taken off and put over a chair in front of the fire. A pair of wet boots threatened rust to her steel fender. She went to these things resolutely. “I suppose I may have them to dry now?” she said, in a voice that brooked no denial.