A more unlikely place hardly could have been chosen for their meeting than an “isle of safety” in mid-street, with motors hissing and toof-toofing round about, policemen gesticulating, and the crowd ceaselessly surging.  The two were marooned with twenty others, and met face to face, squarely, like foes who set themselves to combat.  At first he tried not to see her, and she, noting his impulse, thought it would be the part of propriety not to see him.  Then that struck her as so futile, so childish, so altogether a libel on the good-fellowship which they had enjoyed in the old days, that she held out her hand.

He swept his hat from his head and grasped the extended hand in a violent yet tremulous clutch.

“We seem to be going in opposite directions,” she said.  There was just a hint of a rising inflection in the accent.

He laughed with nervous delight.

“We are going the same way,” he declared.  “That’s a well-established fact.”

An irritable policeman broke in on them with:—­

“Do you people want to get across the street or not?”

“Personally,” said McCrea, smiling at him, “I’m not particular.”

The policeman was Irish and he liked lovers.  He thought he was looking at a pair of them.

“Well, it’s not the place I’d be choosing for conversation, sir,” he said.

“Right you are,” agreed Ray.  “I suppose you’d prefer a lane in Ballamacree?”

“Yes, sir.  Good luck to you, sir.”

“Same to you,” called back Ray.

He and Kate swung into the procession on the boulevard.  Kate was smiling happily.

“You haven’t changed a bit!” she cried.  “You keep right on enjoying yourself, don’t you?”

“Not a bit of it,” retorted Ray indignantly.  “I’ve been miserable!  You know I have.  The only satisfaction I got at all was in hoping I was making you miserable, too.  Was I?”

“I wouldn’t own to it if you had,” said Kate.  “Shall we forgive each other?”

“Do you want it to be as easy as that—­after all we’ve been through?  Wouldn’t it be more satisfactory to quarrel?”

“You can if you want, of course,” Kate laughed.  “But hadn’t it better be with some other person?  Really, I wanted to see you dreadfully—­or, at least, I wanted to see you pleasantly.  I had made preparations.  You didn’t let me know when to expect you, and I had an engagement when you did come.  Weren’t you foolish to get in a rage?”

“But I was so frightfully disappointed.  I expected so much and I had expected it so long.”

“Ray!” Her voice was almost stern, and he turned to look at her half with amusement, half with apprehension.  “Expect nothing.  Enjoy yourself to-day.”

“But how can I enjoy myself to-day unless I am made to understand that there is something I may expect from you?  Circumstances have kept us playing fast and loose long enough.  Can’t we come to an understanding, Kate?”