‘I was going to say, Don’t you see me as it is?’ ‘But what is this?’ ‘Well, it’s two or three times every week,’ she said. ‘Yes, but what is it? Just a casual picking up. You come--you happen to come--and then you disappear. At any time you might happen not to come, and then----’ ‘Why then,’ she finished for him as he paused, ‘you’d have all this beautiful stuff to yourself. I don’t think they ever did that last bit <i>more</i> wonderfully, do you?’ And off she went again, cooing on as usual about <i>The Immortal Hour</i>, and he hadn’t a chance to get in another word before the confounded music began again and the faithful with one accord called out ‘Sh--sh.’ Enthusiasm, thought Christopher, should have its bounds. He forgot that, to begin with, his enthusiasm had far outdone hers. He folded his arms once more, a sign with him of determined and grim patience, and when it was over and she bade him her smiling good night and hurried off without any more words, he lost no time bothering about putting on his coat but simply seized it and went after her. It was difficult to keep her in sight. She could slip through gaps he couldn’t, and he very nearly lost her at the turn of the stairs. He caught her up, however, on the steps outside, just as she was about to plunge out into the rain, and laid his hand on her arm. She looked round surprised. In the glare of the peculiarly searching light theatres turn on to their departing and arriving patrons he was struck by the fatigue on her face. The music was too much for her--she looked worn out. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘don’t run away like this. It’s pouring. You wait here and I’ll get you a taxi.’ ‘Oh, but I always go by tube,’ she said, clutching at him a moment as some people pushing past threw her against him. ‘You can’t go by tube to-night. Not in this rain. And you look frightfully tired.’ She glanced up at him oddly and laughed a little. ‘Do I?’ she said. ‘Well, I’m not. Not a bit tired. And I can quite well go by tube. It’s quite close.’ ‘You can’t do anything of the sort. Stand here out of the rain while I get a taxi.’ And off he ran. For a moment she was on the verge of running off herself, going to the tube as usual and getting home her own way, for why should she be forced into an expensive taxi? Then she thought: ‘No--it would be low of me, simply low. I must try and behave like a little gentleman----’ and waited. ‘Where shall I tell him to go to?’ asked Christopher, having got his taxi and put her inside it and simply not had the courage to declare it was his duty to see her safely home. She told him the address--90<small>A</small> Hertford Street--and he wondered a moment why, living in such a street with the very air of Park Lane wafted down it from just round the corner, she should not only not have a car but want to go in tubes. ‘Can I give you a lift?’ she asked, leaning forward at the last moment.