She did not particularly like him. He was not more to her than any other man. But she liked him to like her. She liked the sensation of entering the settled calm and ordered routine of his existence and exploding there like a stick of dynamite. He had faults. He was too careful with his money, too prone to give money a higher place than it deserved. And his mind, when he strove to divert it into philosophical channels, was woefully sterile. But he so obviously reverenced her. With a quiet dignity he demanded to be treated as an inferior. There was no resisting such an appeal. Whether she liked him or not she could not help liking the immense compliment he paid her by his whole attitude.... It was not that he had not a high opinion of himself. He had, and that enhanced the significance of the fact that his opinion of her was higher still.... Next Saturday afternoon? ... Yes, no doubt she would be free next Saturday afternoon.... § 2 As the morning progressed she transacted her business steadily and methodically. About three in the afternoon Mr. Hobbs returned. She was careful to show no eagerness to see him, careful that she should not betray by her countenance or manner her reply to his invitation. He, on his part, was quite ready to fall in with her pretence. He attended to various matters in the gramophone department and left her very much to herself. When he spoke to her it was strictly on business, and with a frigid professional politeness. At a few minutes past four he called her to the telephone. A gentleman wanted a piece of music, and he did not know what exactly it was or where it could be obtained. Perhaps Miss Weston would oblige.... Catherine went to the instrument. It tickled her vanity to be appealed to as a last resource. She tossed her head a little proudly as she put her ear to the receiver. A strange thing happened.... Someone was speaking down the instrument, and at the sound of his voice Catherine flushed a deep red. A wave of recognition and recollection and remembrance swept over and engulfed her. She did not hear what he said. “Again, please,” she muttered huskily, in a tone not in the least like her usual, “I didn’t quite catch....” The voice boomed in rather irritated repetition, “Bach double-piano concerto,” it said, “in C minor.... Bach ... for two pianos ... do you understand?” She tried to grasp it while her mind was busied with a million other things. “It goes like this ...” the voice went on, and commenced a weird nasal rumble like a tube-train emerging from a tunnel.... “Da-da-da-da-da-daddaddadd-addadd-addah.” She smiled! Once again fate had flung to her a moment of triumph. Long ago, when the man at the other end of the telephone had been her friend, she had learnt specially for him a work of Bach which was little known and not likely to be much cared about. Her gift had never been offered.... And now, after all this interval, he was enquiring about the very piece she had learned for him!