"To-night, if you like." Miss Jennings considered. "I must see if my sister's to be at home," she said. "There are just two of us, and one always stays in of an evening with mother. May I use the telephone? My sister is with Goswell Brothers, in Finsbury Circus." "Certainly," said Philip. Miss Jennings sat down at the roll-top desk and took the receiver off the hook. She flatly declined to accept the assurance of the operator at the exchange that the number she required,-- (1) was out of order; (2) was engaged; (3) had not replied; and in the incredible space of four minutes succeeded in establishing telephonic communication with a place of business almost a mile away. A much briefer but equally decisive encounter with the Finsbury Circus office-boy ended with the production of Miss Jennings's sister, who was forthwith addressed:-- "That you, May dear?" "T'ck, t'ck," replied the instrument. "I want to go out to-night. Can you stay in with mother, or are you doing anything?" Apparently the reply was satisfactory, for Miss Jennings turned to Philip. "That will be all right, Mr. Meldrum," she said. They dined at Gatti's, and went on to the Gaiety. Philip dropped readily into the etiquette of the amphitheatre stalls, and provided Miss Jennings with chocolates and lemon squashes during the interval. Halfway through the second act he decided that this was the pleasantest evening he had spent since he came to London. What Miss Jennings thought of it all he did not know, for she did not tell him. Having speared her hat to the back of the seat in front and dabbed her hair into position, she sat absolutely silent, with her eyes fixed unwinkingly upon the stage. For the time her perpetual companion, the typewriter, was forgotten, and she lived and moved in the world of romance, where ladies were always fair and gentlemen either gallant or entertaining. Occasionally, without removing her gaze, she would call her host's attention, by a half-unconscious gesture, to some particularly attractive item of the entertainment. When all was over she sighed resignedly and preceded Philip out into the roaring Strand. Philip, scanning the street for a disengaged cab, asked her where she lived. Miss Jennings gave him an address in Balham. "We had better walk down to the Embankment," he said. "We might pick up a taxi or a hansom outside the Savoy." Miss Jennings murmured something perfunctory about the facilities offered to the public by the London General Omnibus Company, and then accompanied him to the Embankment. Presently a hansom was secured, and Philip handed his guest in, at the same time furtively paying the driver. "Good-night," said Miss Jennings, "and thank you." They shook hands, for the first time in their acquaintanceship. The cabman and his horse, however, did not know this, and immediately feigned a studious interest in something on the Surrey side of the river.