“We got in long before the others. The General positively crawls in that Standard of his. And Patch did turn up, after all. We met him with Mrs. Harter.” “That Mrs. Harter?” said Claire. “We all of us got the things together, and we decided that Mrs. Harter ought to wear an Eastern dress, too, for singing ‘The Bulbul Ameer.’ She’s very clever at dressmaking and she and I can easily make the things ourselves. That’ll save expense,” babbled Nancy. “Why didn’t you bring Captain Patch back with you? I like Captain Patch. He and I have so much in common.” “He and Mrs. Harter were going to have tea together somewhere in the town.” Claire drew her brows together for an instant and then raised them, as though puzzled. “But how nice of him, to be kind to Mrs. Harter!” “I think he admires her, if you ask me,” said Christopher easily. “They came in together by ’bus to-day from Cross Loman.” Then they began to talk about the play again. It was then, on that same day, that Mary Ambrey and Claire and I had begun to ask ourselves if Christopher was falling in love with Nancy Fazackerly, that the first suggestion was made of anybody’s having noticed the friendship between Mrs. Harter and Captain Patch. _Chapter Eight_ After that, the two affairs in one sense ran concurrently, so far as the outer world was concerned. In that other world, of course, that I have called the inner life, they were on altogether different planes. As far as I know, Bill Patch and Mrs. Harter knew no hesitations at all. The day after that evening when they had gone up Loman Hill he said to Mrs. Fazackerly that he could not come to the rehearsal and that he wanted to be out all day. At nine o’clock in the morning he was at the house in Queen Street, where she was waiting for him. He saw her, as he crossed the road, sitting at the execrable little bow window of the dining room, her hands clasped in her lap, quite obviously looking down the street, waiting. When he reached the three steps, she got up and opened the front door and said to him, “Let’s get out of this!” jerking her head backwards at the linoleum floor and tiled walls of the tiny entrance. She was wearing her outdoor things, all ready. As they walked down Queen Street together Mary Ambrey passed them. She stopped, with some question for Bill about the play. Mrs. Harter stood by, and after one look at her Mary suddenly remembered Martyn’s words: “That woman hard? I wonder what we were all thinking about!” Captain Patch, in a way, was always joyous, and that morning he only looked younger than ever, but, to Mary’s perceptions, there was something about them both that almost made her catch her breath.