They chose for lunch a quiet spot hemmed in by ferns and bushes. Catherine’s spirits soared higher and higher as the hours flew.... The sun was splashing over the hills as they came upon the red roofs of Chingford. The quantity of feeble, flippant conversation that passed amongst them was colossal. But they had had a glorious day.... “I’ll see you home,” said George, as they entered the straggling outskirts of Bockley. “Please don’t,” replied Catherine. “It’s quite out of your way.” “I assure you ...” he began. “Please ...” she reiterated. The truth was she did not wish her mother to see her in the company of a young man. Amidst the winedark fragrance of an April evening they passed until they reached the corner of the road where the Trants lived. They stopped talking here for three-quarters of an hour, and then said good-bye. At the last minute George said: “By the way, I’ve got to call in at a shop in the High Street to see about something, so I may as well walk back part of the way with you.” Catherine blushed, but the darkness shielded her. “The shops’ll be shut by this time,” said Helen, quietly. “Er ... not ... er ... the shop _I_ mean,” replied George. He walked back with Catherine as far as the corner of High Street and the Ridgeway. Their talk was rather vaguely, indefinitely sentimental. Twice he quoted from Swinburne and once from Omar Khayyám. As they descended the hill Catherine took off her tam-o’-shanter hat and stuffed it in her pocket. The soft night breeze blew her hair like a dim cloud behind her.... They shook hands in the dark interval between two brilliantly lighted shop-windows. “My God,” he whispered softly, “your hair!” He brushed it lightly with his hand. “What about it?” she said, and her voice was nearly as soft as his. “Passionate,” he cried; “like flame ... flame ... good-night....” He fled into the dark vista of a side-street. § 6 The clock on the Carnegie library said, Ten minutes past ten. Catherine thought, Now for a big row at home.... She had been forbidden to come in later than nine o’clock. “When _I_ was young ...” her mother had said. And her father had argued: “I can’t see..what you need ever to be out later than nine for.... You’ve got all the daytime, surely you don’t need the night as well.... I can’t understand.... It’s not as if we didn’t let you do what you like on Saturday afternoons....” She put her hat on as she turned into Kitchener Road. She sauntered slowly to No. 24. A minute or two won’t make much difference, she reasoned, on top of an hour and a quarter. The crowded memories of the day just past, coupled with anticipation of a domestic fracas when she got home, combined to make her somewhat excited. The day had been so full of incident that she would have enjoyed walking the cool streets till midnight, reckoning things out and sizing them according to their relative importance.