An impartial spectator, observing with pain George’s laboured attempts to appear hearty, would have said that George was hard to please. Monica looked the sort of passenger whom any right-minded, car-possessing bachelor would go miles out of his way to collect. Her pretty, eager face flushed with excitement, her tongue prattling merrily, and her trim, fur-encased figure very nearly jumping with pleasure, what better company could such a right-minded man desire? George was evidently not right-minded. His face, as he walked uneasily at Monica’s side towards the station, bore an expression of mingled apprehension and gloom; he looked as if he strongly suspected Monica of having a hose-pipe concealed somewhere about her person. George need not have bothered. Monica had few things concealed about her person, and certainly not a hose-pipe. A young woman with any pretence to fashion seldom wears a hose-pipe in these days. She began to talk very earnestly about Dora. Monica, it appeared, had long cherished the conviction that she, too, had a call to the stage. She had taken part occasionally in local amateur theatricals at home, and though that was of course nothing to go by, people really had said quite decent things. Not that she wanted to swank or anything like that, but she did somehow _feel_ she could act. Did George think that Dora would be too bored to give her some advice? Did Dora know any managers? Had Dora enough influence to get one of them to give Monica a trial? Did George think Dora would let Monica come and see her in London? Was it possible to see Dora at the theatre? Could Dora, did George think, let Monica have a peep _behind the scenes_—just a tiny peep? What did George think about this, about that, and about the other? George began to brighten. Here was somebody who actually wanted to know his opinion. Very few people ever wanted to know George’s opinion. It was a pleasant novelty. Monica had improved. In the old days she had shown no signs of interest in George’s opinion. If she had consulted George as to his candid opinion, he would have informed her that on the whole he did not think he much wanted to dance before the wedding-guests; but she had done nothing of the sort. Now, she seemed to be hanging on his words. By Jove, yes; Monica _had_ improved. George forgot all about hose-pipes and became very nearly animated.