Once more I had been looking for a billet elsewhere, and this time I had excellent hopes of success. The post for which I had applied would not be vacant for six weeks yet, but I had forced a personal interview with one of my prospective employers, and had done what I had intended to do--impressed him strongly with a sense of my mental capacity. He had promised me his interest, and, unless he forgot it again (which, of course, was not impossible), I might have at least enough for one to live on before long. And once more my wider hopes were, I knew in my soul, not illusions. Soon there would remain only the bond that tied me to Kitty, and, with that broken, I would no longer envy even Archie Merridew that luck and weak charm of his that in the past had so often seemed more valuable than all I possessed. But Kitty, lying back in her deck-chair, had opened her eyes again. They were full of softness and fright. She spoke. "I wonder, Jeff--whether----" she said timidly and stopped. "You wonder what, Kitty?" I asked gently. "I know how strict you are--and if you say no I won't--but if I might go and see her----" "Miss Causton?" "Not if you don't wish it, Jeff----" I considered. "Has she asked you to go?" "No--but if you wouldn't mind--very much----" It mattered little to me, but I had to pretend to ponder deeply. I really don't know whether I felt sorrow for Miss Causton or not. She was altogether beyond my comprehension. For all I knew my sorrow might be an impertinence. So I must seem to ponder. "Where is she?" I asked. "She's taken rooms in Putney." "Alone?" I asked, with a quick glance at Kitty. "Oh yes!... Until June or July, that is----" "It is then that she expects----" "Yes.... And I thought, Jeff, that perhaps next Saturday--we shall be out that way----" We had arranged a little excursion for the following Saturday, the four of us--Evie and Archie, and Kitty and myself. We were to wander on Wimbledon Common. "I never really knew her well, Jeff, understood her, I mean," she went on, "but after all I did see a good deal of her. It's horrible, when I remember the things she used to say.... And--and--you've made such a difference to me, darling--I wasn't going--to be married--before.... I should like to go, Jeff--just once," she begged. "You wouldn't commit yourself to anything?" "Oh no!" "Does Evie want to go too?" I asked. "No. She says she couldn't bear it. She cried half last night as it is." "Then you'd call on your way next Saturday, and meet the three of us later?" "Yes." "Very well," I concluded. "You'd better go." She threw her arms impulsively about my neck. Then a change came over her. I think the change began with the failure of the supply of gas from the penny-in-the-slot meter. She had arranged for her little party a pink tissue-paper shade about her milky globe, an idea she had borrowed from Woburn Place; and slowly its colour faded. I had several pennies in my pocket. Quickly I felt for them.