On the steps of the hospital Nona paused and looked about her. The operation was over--everything had "gone beautifully," as beautifully as it almost always does on these occasions. Maisie had been immensely grateful for her coming, and as surprised as if an angel from the seventh heaven had alighted to help her through. The two girls had sat together, making jerky attempts at talk, till the nurse came and said: "All right--she's back in bed again"; and then Maisie, after a burst of relieving tears, had tiptoed off to sit in a corner of her mother's darkened room and await the first sign of returning consciousness. There was nothing more for Nona to do, and she went out into the April freshness with the sense of relief that the healthy feel when they escape back to life after a glimpse of death. On the hospital steps she ran into Arthur Wyant. "Exhibit, dear! What are you doing here?" "Coming to inquire for poor Mrs. Bruss. I heard from Amalasuntha..." "That's kind of you. Maisie'll be so pleased." She gave him the surgeon's report, saw that his card was entrusted to the right hands, and turned back into the street with him. He looked better than when he had left for the south; his leg was less stiff, and he carried his tall carefully dressed figure with a rigid jauntiness. But his face seemed sharper yet higher in colour. Fever or cocktails? She wondered. It was lucky that their meeting would save her going to the other end of the town to see him. "Just like you, Exhibit, to remember poor Maisie..." He raised ironic eyebrows. "Is inquiring about ill people obsolete? I see you still keep up the tradition." "Oh, I've been seeing it through with Maisie. Some one had to." "Exactly. And your mother held aloof, but financed the whole business?" "Splendidly. She always does." He frowned, and stood hesitating, and tapping his long boot-tip with his stick. "I rather want to have a talk with your mother." "With mother?" Nona was on the point of saying: "She's in town today--" then, remembering Pauline's crowded list, she checked the impulse. "Won't I do as a proxy? I was going to suggest your carrying me off to lunch." "No, my dear, you won't--as a proxy. But I'll carry you off to lunch." The choice of a restaurant would have been laborious--for Wyant, when taken out of his rut, became a mass of manias, prejudices and inhibitions--but Nona luckily remembered a new Bachelor Girls' Club ("The Singleton") which she had lately joined, and packed him into a taxi still protesting. They found a quiet corner in a sociable low-studded dining-room, and she leaned back, listening to his disconnected monologue and smoking one cigarette after another in the nervous inability to eat.