The Morfes’ house was at the corner of Trafalgar Road and Beech Street.  The cars stopped at that corner in their wild course towards the town and towards Turnhill.  A car was just coming.  But instead of waiting for it Richard Morfe and Eva Harracles deliberately turned their backs on Trafalgar Road, and hurried side by side down Beech Street.  Beech Street is a short street, and ends in a nondescript unlighted waste patch of ground.  They arrived in the gloom of this patch, safe from all human inquisitiveness, and then Richard Morfe warmly kissed Eva Harracles in the mathematical centre of those lips of hers.  And Eva Harracles showed no resentment of any kind, nor even shame.  Yet she had been very carefully brought up.  The sight would have interested Bursley immensely; it would have appealed strongly to Bursley’s strong sense of the piquant....  That dry old stick Dick Morfe kissing one of his contraltos in the dark at the bottom end of Beech Street.

“Then you hadn’t told her!” murmured Eva Harracles.

“No!” said Richard, with a slight hesitation.  “I was just going to begin to tell her when you called.”

Another woman might have pouted to learn that her lover had exhibited even a little cowardice in informing his family that he was engaged to be married.  But Eva did not pout.  She comprehended the situation, and the psychology of the relations between brothers and sisters. (She herself possessed both brothers and sisters.) All the courting had been singularly secret and odd.

“I shall tell her to-morrow morning at breakfast,” said Richard, firmly.  “Unless, after all, she isn’t gone to bed when I get back.”

By a common impulse they now returned towards Trafalgar Road.

“I say,” said Richard, “what made you call?”

“I was passing,” said the beloved.  “And somehow I couldn’t help it.  Of course, I knew it wasn’t true about Mr Loggerheads.  But I had to think of something.”

Richard was in ecstasy; had never been in such ecstasy.

“I say,” he said again.  “I suppose you didn’t put your finger against the pendulum of that clock?”

“Oh, no!” she replied with emphasis.

“Well, I’m jolly glad it did stop, anyway,” said Richard.  “What a lark, eh?”

She agreed that the lark was ideal.  They walked down the road till a car should overtake them.

“Do you think she suspects anything?” Eva asked.

“I’ll swear she doesn’t,” said Richard, positively.  “It’ll be a bit of a startler for the old girl.”

“No doubt you’ve heard,” said Eva, haltingly, “that Mr Loggerheads has cast eyes on Mary.”

“And do you think there’s anything in that?” Richard questioned sharply.

“Well,” she said, “I really don’t know.”  Meaning that she decidedly thought that Mary had been encouraging advances from Mr Loggerheads.

“Well,” said Richard, superiorly, “you may just take it from me that there’s nothing in it at all....  Ha!” He laughed shortly.  He knew Mary.