'What would you have done, then?' 'I should have bolted--and dined. And I rather wish I had. I tell you what; if I were you, I'd have one comfortable chair in this room.' He was perched on a straight-backed affair with spindly legs--a base imitation of what (from the sitter's point of view) was always an unfortunate ideal. 'I'd bolt with you--for the sake of dinner,' moaned Peggy. 'What are they doing all this time, Tommy?' Tommy shrugged his shoulders in undisguised contempt. 'Couldn't we go and dine?' he suggested, with a gleam of hope. 'I want to dine very, very much,' avowed Peggy; 'but I'm too excited.' She looked straight at him, pointed towards the door, and declared, 'I'm going in.' 'You'd better knock something over first.' 'No, I'm going straight in. If it's all right, it won't matter, and we can all go out to dinner together. If they're being silly, I shall stop them. I'm going in, Tommy!' Tommy rose from the spindle-shanked counterfeit with a determined air. 'You'll do nothing of the kind. It isn't fair play,' he said. 'It's not you that's going in, is it?' asked Peggy, as though that disposed of his claim to interfere. 'And you needn't tell me I'm dishonourable any more. It's dull. I'm going.' In fact she had got to the handle of the door. She had grasped it when Tommy came and took hold of her arm. 'No, you don't!' he said. For an instant Peggy thought that she would take offense. Tommy's rigidity of moral principle, within the limits of his vision, proved, however, too much for her. She still held the handle, but she leant against the door, laughing as she looked up in his face. 'Let go, Tommy! In short, unhand me!' 'Will you go, if I do?' 'That's what I want you to do it for,' Peggy explained, with a rapid and pronounced gravity. Her eyes sparkled at him, her lips were mischievous, the waves of her hair seemed dowered with new grace. Perhaps there was something, too, in the general atmosphere of the flat that night. Anyhow the thought of vindicating moral principles and the code of honour lost the first place in Tommy's thoughts. Yet he did not let go of his prisoner. With the change in his thoughts--did it betray itself on his face?--came a change in Peggy also. She was still gaily defiant, but she looked rather on the defensive too. A touch of timidity mingled with the challenge which her eyes still directed at him. 'It's not the least good lecturing you,' he declared. 'I don't know how you ever came to think you knew how to do it.' 'Peggy, am I never to get any forwarder?' 'Not much, I hope,' answered Peggy, with a stifled laugh. He looked at her steadily for a minute. 'You like me,' he said. 'If you hadn't liked me, I should have been kicked out by now.' 'I call that taking a very unfair advantage,' murmured Peggy. 'Because you're not the sort of girl to let a man----' 'Then why don't you let go of my arm?'