She answered quite readily: "Of course not--not without you." I got up and kissed her. I had expected no less of her. But I knew that she would have liked to go to Broadstairs, and was only staying away out of her duty to me, it was not for me to deny her her sex's equivalent of a grumble--a sigh. Then we began to talk. We talked quite equably: I never in my life wrangled with Evie. I said, quite gently, that I did not wish the boy to acquire precocious chatter about pressing business and pretty typists, and Evie made no opposition; indeed, she laughed when I suggested how unlikely it was that any pretty typist would have pressing business with myself. By-and-by she asked me who had rung me up, and I told her. "Oh, yes, I forgot; she's with you now," she said; "Mr Whitlock engaged her, didn't he?" "Yes," I answered. Then, after a little further talk, we kissed again, and she went out to give Phyllis her bath. Oddly enough, very soon after speaking thus of Louie after that long silence, she saw Louie herself. One morning she announced that she was going shopping that day, and would call for me at Pall Mall and bring me home to tea. She finished her shopping earlier than she had thought she would, and, not wishing to disturb me before the appointed time, had come upon Louie in the counting-house. She told me this when we got home. She had asked Louie to show her round, and was full of the wonders of the place--the lifts, the telephone exchange, the series of waiting-rooms, the advice-board from Lloyd's, the acre-wide office full of busy clerks. "What a change from Holborn!" she said she had said to Louie, and then Louie had brought her to my own private room. The next day Louie made a mistake in a rather important draft. It was not like her, and Whitlock blamed himself for having left too much to her intuition. The error necessitated a consultation between Louie, Whitlock and myself. It was set right, and Louie was going out again when I glanced at Whitlock. He looked inquiringly, nodded, and left us. There was something I wanted to say to Louie; perhaps it was rather something that it would not be very graceful not to say; perhaps it was both. I think this was the first time I spoke to her at the Consolidation except on business. "Well, that will be all right," I said, dismissing the error in the draft.... "By the way, you saw my wife yesterday, didn't you?" She gave a little nod. "And showed her round? It was very good of you. She enjoyed it very much. She told me all about it." Louie said something about it being no trouble, and then appeared to be going. But I stopped her. Then, when I had stopped her, I didn't quite know what to say. "Oh--er----" I said awkwardly, looking at her and then looking away again. "Without opening matters up--you know what I mean--going into things--I want to say just one thing. It's about--a piece of advice you once gave me."