“You ought to have been here a minute ago,” she said. “There was such an amusing discussion between two girls about which should pay. I was immensely taken with one of them—she wasn’t exactly pretty, but she looked so jolly, and she just carried everything before her in a most entertaining fashion. She’s just the sort of girl I’d fall in love with if I were a man. Did you notice her? She was paying at the desk while you hunted up these cakes.” “I did. It was Paddy Adair.” “Paddy Adair!” in tones of amazement. “Was that really Paddy Adair, Lawrence?” “It was.” “Goodness!” and Gwen grew quite contemptuous. “Why you said she was plain and dowdy!” Lawrence calmly continued his tea. “So she was the last time I saw her.” “Well, she isn’t now, anyway. I call her quite striking, and she was distinctly well dressed.” There was a pause, then she added: “Perhaps she’s married, and got a man to choose her things for her. That’s one thing husbands are sometimes good for; and some of them know a fair amount about hair-dressing too.” “No, she’s not married,” said Lawrence. “Doreen was talking about them only the other day. They’re living in Shepherd’s Bush.” “Shepherd’s Bush!” echoed Gwendoline. “How awful, after their country home. But how London has smartened her up, hasn’t it?” “Astonishingly.” “I wish you had come back in time to speak to her,” continued Gwen. “I’d like to be introduced.” Meanwhile, Paddy walked down to Piccadilly Circus with Ethel Matheson, and then hurried back to get her ’bus in Oxford Street. On the way she dashed into a shop and bought some tomatoes, a favourite dish of her mother’s—true to her nationality, acting on the spur of the moment, blissfully regardless of the fact that she could have got the same article for half the money at the other end of her ’bus ride. As she hurried past Fuller’s Lawrence and Gwendoline came out, the latter catching sight of her instantly. “There’s Paddy Adair!” she exclaimed. “Do stop her.” Lawrence hesitated and in that second Paddy brushed too near a boy with a basket, the basket caught against her bag of tomatoes—carried no doubt in somewhat careless fashion—the paper split, and out sprawled the tomatoes all across the pavement in the midst of the rank and fashion of Regent Street. “Christopher Columbus!” exclaimed Paddy under her breath and blushing crimson, but quite unable to help laughing, as she commenced diving for her belongings among the feet of the passers-by. A dark-eyed girl, enjoying the scrimmage immensely, rescued one from the gutter, while the man with her succeeded in getting three from various directions, and when Paddy at last turned to thank them, a lovely colour in her cheeks and a bewitching roguishness in her eyes, she found herself face to face with Lawrence Blake and his companion, each offering her a tomato. CHAPTER XXXI Paddy Makes a New Friend.