"You can’t help that. You might as well say that he’s disappointed because you don’t pack your box and go straight off to Ruddington Towers." Susan was unconvinced. "What did you say yourself, Susan, last week? Didn’t you say that it wouldn’t be good for him to throw yourself at his head?" When Susan first used it, the expression had irritated me; but it came in handily. Susan, however, thought otherwise. A spirit of revolt entered her soul, and I perceived the beginnings of her new pout. "Do as you like, Susan, of course," I said. "It’s your affair, not mine. But don’t go and make another muddle as you did with Mr. John Lamb." It went home. Indeed, I’m not sure that Mr. John Lamb wasn’t, so to speak, a wolf with a silver lining. The merest whisper of his soft and innocent name is enough to scare Susan into the extreme of docility. "Oh, no, Miss!" she said hurriedly. "The letter’s beautiful. But don’t you think...?" "What?" "Don’t you think, Miss, it would be nice to ask for his photograph and a lock of his hair?" While I was fighting down an impulse to laugh outright, it struck me that the photograph was rather a happy thought. With his photograph to study, I should at least be spared panicky announcements and "dreadful feelings" whenever Susan saw a strange Englishman at Sainte Véronique. Besides, I had no little curiosity to see what this mad Lord Ruddington might be like. "A lock of hair is ridiculous," I said. "You must have been reading some trashy novelette. But a photograph’s different. I’m glad you’ve thought of it. After all, Susan, you mightn’t care to marry even Lord Ruddington if you found he was dreadfully ugly. Give me back the letter, and I’ll add a postscript." I wrote:-- P.S.--I feel that I haven’t written you much of a letter; but there is so little to lay hold of. As I said before, you have seen me, but I have never seen you. Will you not send me your photograph? When it comes, perhaps I shall remember that I have seen you, after all. Where was it that you saw me? Taking a little more liberty than was her wont, Susan peeped shyly over my shoulder while I wrote. As I put down the pen, she heaved a deep sigh of unaffected satisfaction. "It’s lovely, Miss!" she said fervently. "That’s just what I must have meant--that part about wondering where he saw me--only I couldn’t explain it. And it’s put so short and ladylike." "Don’t say ’ladylike,’ Susan," I said. "Give me an envelope." I wrote out Lord Ruddington’s name and address in the style of handwriting I had used throughout the letter. It was my own writing; but a little bigger, inkier, and slower than usual. "You see, Susan," I explained, "I’m meeting you halfway. By the time he’s had a letter or two from me written like this, you ought to be able to do something pretty near it yourself. Now go upstairs and bring down those French stamps. They’re in my green bag."