She was looking lovelier than ever. That was the thing that first presented itself to John's notice. If anybody had told him that Pat could possibly be prettier than the image of her which he had been carrying about with him all these months, he would not have believed him. But so it was. Some sort of a female with plucked eyebrows and a painted face had just come in, and she might have been put there expressly for purposes of comparison. She made Pat seem so healthy, so wholesome, such a thing of the open air and the clean sunshine, so pre-eminently fit. She looked as if she had spent her time at Le Touquet playing thirty-six holes of golf a day. "Pat!" cried John, and something seemed to catch at his throat. There was a mist in front of his eyes. His heart was thumping madly. She extended her hand composedly. In her this meeting after long separation had apparently stirred no depths. Her demeanour was friendly, but matter-of-fact. "Well, Johnnie. How nice to see you again. You're looking very brown and rural. Where's Hugo?" It takes two to hoist a conversation to an emotional peak. John choked, and became calmer. "He'll be here soon, I expect," he said. Pat laughed indulgently. "Hugo'll be late for his own funeral--if he ever gets to it. He said eleven-fifteen and it's twenty-five to twelve. Have you got a table?" "Not yet." "Why not?" "I'm not a member," said John, and saw in her eyes the scorn which women reserve for male friends and relations who show themselves wanting in enterprise. "You have to be a member," he said, chafing under the look. "I don't," said Pat with decision. "If you think I'm going to wait all night for old Hugo in a small lobby with six draughts whizzing through it, correct that impression. Go and find the head waiter and get a table while I leave my cloak. Back in a minute." John's emotions as he approached the head waiter rather resembled those with which years ago he had once walked up to a bull in a field, Pat having requested him to do so because she wanted to know if bulls in fields really are fierce or if the artists who depict them in comic papers are simply trying to be funny. He felt embarrassed and diffident. The head waiter was a large, stout, smooth-faced man who would have been better for a couple of weeks at Healthward Ho, and he gave the impression of having disliked John from the start. John said it was a nice evening. The head waiter did not seem to believe him. "Has--er--has Mr. Carmody booked a table?" asked John. "No, monsieur." "I'm meeting him here to-night." The head waiter appeared uninterested. He began to talk to an underling in rapid French. John, feeling more than ever an intruder, took advantage of a lull in the conversation to make another attempt. "I wonder.... Perhaps.... Can you give me a table?"