"All these things are very interesting," she added quickly; "at least they must be if one understands anything about them." Greenleaf was sorry. He didn't know exactly why; but he felt vaguely as if he had been brutal. He had made her shut up--for he recognised that the second part of her speech was the reaction against his own; and that was brutal. He ought not to have let the conversation depart from the technicalities of pottery, as he had done by saying he intended giving it up, and then bursting into that socialistic rhapsody. It wasn't fair upon her. By this time the reaction had completely set in with her. Her face had a totally different expression, indifferent, bored, a little insolent--the expression of her society and order. "It's been very good of you," she said, looking vaguely round the room, with the shimmer of green leaves and the glint of enamel in its brown dustiness, "to tell me so many things, and to have given up so much of your time. I didn't know, you know, from Messrs. Boyce, that I was breaking in upon you at your work. I suppose they were so kind because of my father having a collection--they thought that I knew more about pottery than I do." She stretched out her hand stiffly. Leonard Greenleaf did not know whether he ought to take it, because he guessed that she did not know whether she ought to offer it him. Also he felt awkward, and sorry to have shut her up. "I should--be very happy to tell you anything more that I could, Miss Flodden," he said; "besides, the owners of Yetholme must be privileged people with us potters." "If--if ever you be passing anywhere near Eaton Square--that's where I live with my aunt," she said, "won't you come in and have a cup of tea? Number 5; the number is on the card. But," she added suddenly, with a little laugh, which was that social stiffening once more, "perhaps you never do pass anywhere near tea-time; or you pass and don't come in. It would be a great waste of your time." What had made her stiffen suddenly like that was a faint smile which had come into Greenleaf's face at the beginning of her invitation. He had understood, or thought he understood, that his visitor had grasped the fact of his being a sort of gentleman after all, and that she thought it necessary to express her recognition of the difference between him and any other member of the firm of Boyce & Co. by asking him to call. "Of course you are a great deal too busy," she repeated. "Perhaps some day you will let me come to your studio again--some day next year--good-bye." "Shall I call you a hansom?" he asked, wondering whether he had been rude. "Thank you; I think I'll go by the Underground. You cross the big square, and then along the side of the British Museum, don't you? I made a note of the way as I came. Or else I'll get a 'bus in Tottenham Court Road."