“All right, I will ask him. Poor little man. He has spent his Christmas at Tansley Street. He would adore Elspeth; although she is not a ‘beef-steak.’ He says there are no children in Europe finer than English children, and will stop suddenly in the middle of a serious conversation to say look, look; but _that_ is a _real_ English beef-steak.” Harry had partly understood. But she still clung to her private thoughts. Meeting him to-day would not be quite the same as before she had mentioned him to anyone. Summoning his familiar form she felt that her talk had been treachery. Yet not to have mentioned him at all felt like treachery too. “There’s quite an interesting Russian at Tansley Street now.” That meant simply nothing at all.... Christmas _had_ been an interruption ... Perhaps something would have happened in his first days of London without her. Perhaps he would not appear this evening. Back at her work at Wimpole Street she forgot everything in a sudden glad realisation of the turn of the year. The sky was bright above the grey wall opposite her window. Soon there would be bright light in it at five o’clock, daylight remaining to walk home in, then at six, and she would see once more for another year the light of the sun on the green of the park. The alley of crocuses would come again, then daffodils in the grass and the green of the on-coming blue-bells. Her table was littered with newly paid accounts, enough to occupy her pen for the short afternoon with pleasant writing, the reward of the late evenings spent before Christmas in hurrying out overdue statements, and the easy prelude to next week’s crowded work on the yearly balance sheets. She sat stamping and signing, and writing picturesque addresses, her eyes dwelling all the while in contemplation of the gift of the outspread year. The patients were few and no calls came from the surgeries. Tea came up while she still felt newly-arrived from the outside world, and the outspread scenes in her mind were gleaming still with fresh high colour in bright light, but the last receipt was signed, and a pile of envelopes lay ready for the post.