"Well, no--I'm glad I went. It has panned out all right. It has been a funny thing to walk down the Strand again and remember that the last time I was in it I was short of sixpences. The other day I looked in at the office where I used to clerk. Two of the boys I had known were there still--grown round-shouldered and pigeon-chested. I suppose they've had a rise of about fifty pounds a year in the meantime. They came round to dinner at the hotel last night, and it made me melancholy to hear them talk. I used to want them to chuck the office and go out to Canada with me--they'd got the stamina once--but they hadn't got the grit. Now it's too late.... You know, it's capital to see you flourishing like this! You're about the only survivor of the old days that it hasn't given me the hump to meet. You always _were_ sure you'd get on, weren't you?" "I was," she said. "Yes, I used to say so." "Do you remember the people in that house? And how we used to groan about the extras in the bills?" "It was a bad time for us both," she stammered. "But it's good to look back on now it's over. Helps one to appreciate. When you're feeling dull now, you can drive round here and have a chat with a friend, and say, 'Well, it used to be much worse--I used to be poor.' Isn't that so?" She nodded helplessly. Her mind was strained to find another subject. "I wish _you'd_ come round to dinner with me one evening, if you've nothing better to do?" "I'm not going out very much just now," she demurred. "I---" "It'd be a charity, I'm all alone, and--by the way, I don't know if 'Miss Barton' is just your literary name now? If there is a lucky man, I hope he will give me the pleasure, too?" "No, I'm not married," she said. "Like me, you've been too busy. You know, I really think our victories should be fêted. It'd be friendly of you to come. You can find one evening free before I go back?" "I suppose," she said, trying to laugh, "I'm not so full of engagements that I can't do that!" And, though neither of them had foreseen the invitation, she was pledged to dine with him. Heavily she reflected that, when the dinner finished, she would be obliged to ask him to send for a taxi and that it would probably cost her a half-crown. * * * * * She went by train. That her solitary evening gown was wrong, having been bought three years since, did not worry her, though as "Lady Veronica," in her _The Autocrat at the Toilet-Table_ column, she wrote of things being "hopelessly last season's" when their vogue had been declining for a week; but she was embarrassed by her lack of evening shoes. At the table she bore herself bravely, supported by the knowledge that the epoch of her sleeves was unsuspected by him, but when she rose she found it difficult to conceal her feet.