Oh! It was ludicrous! The laugh came again quickly to John’s lips, but as soon it died away. So much was at stake. He had pictured it all so plainly. She would be disappointed when she heard he was going. He would ask her why that look had passed across her eyes. Her answer would be evasive, and then, word by word, look by look, he would lead her to the very door of his heart until the cry--"I love you"--the most wonderful words to say--the most terribly wonderful words to mean, would be wrung from his lips into her ears. And now this imperturbable fiend of a bailiff, with his very natural incredulity and his simple way of expressing it, had come to wreck the greatest moment of his life. John looked him up and down. "What sort of a friend do you think I could introduce you as?" he asked. "Do you think you look like a friend of mine?" The little man glanced down at his boots, at the light-brown tweed trousers, upturned and showing a pair of woollen socks not far removed in colour from that of his tie. "Well--you never know," said he, looking up again. "I’m stayin’ here, aren’t I? They said you was a writer--that you wrote books. Well, have you never seen a person who wrote books, like me? Why there was a woman I ’ad to get the rent from once--a journalist, she called herself. She’d got a bit of a beard and a fair tidy moustache--and by gum, she dressed queerer than anything my old woman would ever put on. I felt quite ashamed to be stoppin’ with her." John laughed again; laughed uproariously. Mr. Chesterton was so amused at the remembrance of it, that he laughed as well. Suddenly their laughter snapped, as you break a slate pencil. There came a gentle, a timid knock on the door. "This is she," whispered John. "The door below was open. She’s come upstairs. What the devil am I going to do?" At last the little man believed him. He really was going to see the lady this time, the lady who would never understand the likes of him, and he began to feel quite nervous. He began to feel ashamed of being a bailiff. "Introduce me as a friend," he whispered--"It’ll be all right--introduce me as a friend." "Sit down there, then--on that settle." Then John opened the door and Jill stepped hesitatingly into the room. Mr. Chesterton rose awkwardly to his feet.