“Hang it all, excuse my language, but y’know he’s done a good deal for ye.” ‘All expectation of gratitude is meanness and is continually punished by the total insensibility of the obliged person’ ..... “we are lucky; we ought to be grateful;” meaning, to God. Then unlucky people ought to be ungrateful.... “Besides” the same gusty tone “it’s as good as telling us we’re not gentlemen; y’see?” The blue eyes flashed furiously. Then all her generalisations had been taken _personally_.... “Oh well,” she said helplessly. “We shall be late, laddie.” “Surely that can be put right. I must talk to Mr. Hancock.” “Well, to tell y’honestly I don’t think y’ll be able to do anything with Hancock.” Mrs. Orly’s distressed little face supported his opinion, and her surprising sudden little embrace and Mr. Orly’s wringing handshake meant not only the enduring depths of their kindliness but their pained dismay in seeing her desolate and resourceless, their certainty that there was no hope. It threw a strong light. It would be difficult for him to withdraw; perhaps impossible; perhaps he had already engaged another secretary..... But she found that she had not watched them go away and was dealing steadily with the letters, with a blank mind upon which presently emerged the features of the coming week-end. * * * * * “Well as I _say_----” Miriam followed the lingering held-in cold vexation of the voice, privately prompting it with informal phrases fitting the picture she held, half-smiling, in her mind, of a moody, uncertain, door-slamming secretary, using the whole practice as material for personal musings, liable suddenly to break into long speeches of accusation. But if they were spoken, they would destroy the thing that was being given back to her, the thing that had made the atmosphere of the room. “It will be the most unbusinesslike thing I’ve ever done; and I doubt very much whether it will answer.” “Oh well. There’s not any reason why it shouldn’t.” She smiled provisionally. It was not yet quite time to rise and feel life flowing about her in the familiar room, purged to a fresh austerity by the coming and passing of the storm. There was still a rankling, and glorious as it was to sit talking at leisure, the passing of time piled up the sense of ultimate things missing their opportunity of getting said. She could not, with half her mind set towards the terms, promising a laborious future, of her resolution that he should never regret his unorthodoxy, find her way to them. And the moments as they passed gleamed too brightly with confirmation of the strange blind faith she had brought as sole preparation for the encounter, hovered with too quiet a benediction to be seized and used deliberately, without the pressure of the sudden inspiration for which they seemed to wait.