Her gaze had wandered during his comparison and Michael, a little hurt by her inattention, asked if she were expecting somebody. “Oh, no. I just came out for a walk. I get a headache if I stay in all the afternoon. Now I must go on. Good-bye.” She scattered with a light kick the little heap of leaves that during their conversation she had been amassing, and with a half-mocking wave of her muff prepared to leave him. “I say, don’t tear off,” Michael begged. “Where do you live?” “Oh, a long way from here,” she said. “But where?” “West Kensington.” “So do I,” cried Michael, thinking to himself that all the gods of luck and love were fighting on his side this afternoon. “We’ll walk home together.” “Shall we?” murmured the girl, poised on bent toes as if she were minded to flee from him in a breath. “Oh, we must,” vowed Michael. “But I mustn’t dawdle,” she protested. “Of course not,” he affirmed with almost an inflexion of puritanical rigour. “You’re leaving your book, stupid,” she laughed, as he rose to take his place by her side. “I wouldn’t have minded, because all that’s in that book is in you,” he declared. “I think I’ll leave it behind for a lark.” She ran back lightly and opened it to see whether his name were on the front page. “Michael Fane,” she murmured. “What does ‘ex libris’ mean?” Yet even as she asked the question her concentration failed, and she seemed not to hear his answer. “You didn’t really want to know, you funny girl,” said Michael. “Know what?” she echoed, blinking round at him over her shoulder as they walked on. “The meaning of ‘ex libris.’” “But I found out your name,” she challenged. “And you don’t know mine.” “What is it?” Michael dutifully asked. “I don’t think I’ll tell you.” “Ah, do.” “Well, then, it’s Lily—and I’ve got a sister called Doris.” “How old are you?” “How old do you think?” “Seventeen?” Michael hazarded. She nodded. It was on the tip of his tongue to claim kinship on the score of their similar years, but discretion defeated honesty, and he said aloofly, gazing up at the sky: “I’m nineteen and a half.” She told him more as they mingled with the crowds in Kensington High Street, that her mother was Mrs. Haden, who recited in public sometimes, that her sister Doris wanted to go on the stage, and that they lived in Trelawny Road.