I saw Louie daily now; and whether it was that she had been able to entrench herself behind her work in my absence, or had found some _modus vivendi_ midway between that ecstasy of the night when she had supported me in a Chelsea doorway and the anguished outbreak of that other evening in the Models' Club, or however it was, my fears for the impossibility of the situation now appeared to have been groundless. Whitlock, indeed, saw more of her than I. He spoke exceedingly favourably of her. She used quickness and common-sense in her work, he said, and, when he had half-a-dozen things to do at once, did not take down a remark interpolated to somebody else as part of the letter he was dictating. I was not surprised to learn that she "flashed" intelligently at unexplained meanings. She converted Whitlock's rapid mumbled instructions into (commercial) English with ease, and had already attracted Pepper's notice. I don't know whether it has struck you that Evie, who had given it as a sufficient reason for renewing her intimacy with Miriam Levey and Kitty Windus that they had been at the old Business College in Holborn together, had never once urged the same thing on behalf of Louie Causton. It was not that I wanted her to do so; as a matter of fact I very much preferred them apart. And I thought I saw the reason for Evie's silence. Louie trailed an unhappy story behind her. Louie had been a model. Aunt Angela had not asked her to her party. If there was any coolness between Miriam Levey and Louie, which now might well be, Evie would naturally be disposed to take the part of the former. I don't mean to say that she looked down on Louie. It was only later that I learned that she wasted a thought on Louie. I only mean that their paths lay in different directions, and that Evie had hitherto appeared content that they should do so. It was in a roundabout way that I discovered that Louie had a place in Evie's thoughts. Acting under my doctor's orders, I had begun to come home early in the afternoon, seldom working after tea; and I entered the drawing-room one afternoon to find a couple of her Broadstairs acquaintances, a Mr and Mrs Smithson, with her. Smithson was, I think, a cycle agent; she was an openwork-stockinged, flirtatious little woman, for ever making eyes, and apparently under the impression that all conversation would languish unless she took the greater part of it upon herself. I imagine it had been she who had sent Evie one or two vulgar seaside post cards that, had they been addressed to me, would have gone straight into the fire. It appeared that they knew Peddie slightly, my old Jun. Ex. Con. of the F.B.C., and now Whitlock's abstract clerk; and I was not disposed to congratulate Peddie on the acquaintance.