"I think," she decided coldly, "it is not worth while discussing this matter with Mr. Walmsley. We are too far apart in our ideas. He has been brought up among a different class of people and in a different way. Besides, he misses the chief point. If I weren't an adventuress, Mr. Walmsley, I might have to become a typist and daddy might have to serve in a shop. Don't you think that we'd rather live--really live, mind--even for a week or two of our lives, than spend dull years, as we have done, upon the treadmill?" "I give it up," I said. "There is only one argument left. You know quite well that the pecuniary excuse exists no longer." She looked at me and her face softened. "You are a queer person!" she murmured. "You are so very English, so very set in your views, so very respectable; and yet you are willing to take us both--" "I am only thinking of marrying you," I interrupted. "Well, you were going to make daddy an allowance, weren't you?" "With great pleasure," I assured her vigorously; "and I only wish you'd take my hand now and we'd fix up everything to-morrow. We could go down and see my house in the country, Eve--I think you'd love it--and there are such things, even in England, you know, as special licenses." "You dear person!" she laughed. "I can't be rushed into respectability like this." Perhaps that was really my first moment of genuine encouragement, for there had been a little break in her voice, something in her tone not altogether natural. If only we had been alone--if even another summons to the telephone had come just then for her father! Fortune, however, was not on my side. Instead, the waiter appeared with the bill and diverted my attention. Eve and her father whispered together. The moment had passed. "Anything particular on this afternoon, Walmsley? "Mr. Parker asked as he rose to his feet. "Not a thing," I replied. "I have just got to hurry off," he explained; "a little matter of business. Eve has nothing to do for an hour or so--" "I'll look after her if I may," I interposed eagerly. "Don't be later than half past five, Eve," her father directed as he went off, "and don't be tired." We followed him a few minutes later into the street. A threatening shower had passed away. The sky overhead was wonderfully soft and blue; the air was filled with sunlight, fragrant with the perfume of barrows of lilac drawn up in the gutter. Eve walked by my side, her head a little thrown back, her eyes for a moment half closed. "But London is delicious on days like this!" she exclaimed. "What are you going to do with me, Mr. Walmsley?" "Take you down to the Archbishop of Canterbury and marry you!" I threatened. She shook her head. "I couldn't be married on a Friday! Let us go and see some pictures instead."