They've all been thinking about it." He felt apprehensive, but his satisfaction amounted to excitement. His attitude was: "At any rate I gave them something to think about!" Also he breathed appreciatively the atmosphere of the three women--two seen and one unseen. How extraordinarily different all of them were from Agg! They reminded him acutely of his deep need of luxury. After all, the life lived by those two men about town, George and Everard, was rather humdrum and monotonous. In spite of Everard's dash, and in spite of George's secret engagement, neither of them met enough women or enough sorts of women. George said to himself: "I shall see her to-night. We shall go up to the flat. She isn't in bed. I shall see her to-night." He wanted to see her because he had hurt her, and because she had remembered and had talked about him and had raised curiosity about him in others. Was she really unwell? Or had she been excusing herself! Was she an angel? He wanted to see her again in order to judge for himself whether she was an angel. If Laurencine said she was an angel she must be an angel. Laurencine was a jolly, honest girl. To be in the car with her was agreeable. But she was insipid. So he assessed the splendidly budding Laurencine, patronizing her a little. Miss Wheeler gave him pause. Her simple phrases had mysterious intonations. He did not understand her glance. He could not settle the first question about her--her age. She might be very wicked; certainly she could be very ruthless. And he had no hold over her. He could give her nothing that she wanted. He doubted whether any man could. "Have you been in London long?" he asked Laurencine. "A week," she said. "I came over with Miss Wheeler. I didn't think mother would let me, but she did." "And did your sister come with you?" "No; Lois only came yesterday." "By herself?" "Yes." "I suppose you go about a lot?" "Oh, we _do_ It's such a change from Paris." "Well, I should prefer Paris." "You wouldn't! London's much more romantic. Paris is so hard and matter-of-fact." "So's London." She squirmed about lissomly on the seat. "You don't know what I mean," she said. "I never _can_ make people see what I mean--about anything." He smiled indulgently and dropped the point. "Miss Wheeler taken you to Mrs. Orgreave's yet?" "Yes; we were there on Saturday afternoon." "Well, what do you think of Mrs. Orgreave?" "Oh! She's very nice," Laurencine answered, with polite tepidity; and added eagerly: "Mr. Orgreave's a dear." George was glad that she had not been enthusiastic about Mrs. Orgreave. Her reserve showed that she could discriminate. Ecstasy was not altogether a habit. If she said that Lois was an angel, Lois probably was an angel. The cars stopped at the foot of a huge block of masonry in a vast leafy square. George suddenly became very nervous. He thought: "I shall be seeing her in a minute." Then, as he got out of the car, he heard Miss Wheeler saying to Lucas: