Waiter (knocking at door and slightly opening it):  “Madame!  Le General Tompkins veut vous voir.  Il ajoute qu’il n’est pas habitue a attendre.  Il y a aussi M’sieur Emile Vandervelde, qui arrive instamment et qui n’a pas d’installation...”

Rossiter:  “Damn!  Let me go and settle with ’em.  Tompkins!  I never heard such cheek—­”

Vivien:  “Not at all.  You forget I am Manageress.” (To Waiter) “Entrez done!  Dites au General que je serai a sa disposition dans trois minutes; et montrez-lui ce que nous avons en fait de chambres.  Tous les appartements avec bain sont pris.  Casez M’sieur Vandervelde quelque part.  Du reste, je descendrai."... (Waiter goes out) ...  “Michael!  It is impossible to have a sentimental conversation here, and at this hour—­Eleven o’clock on a busy morning.  If you want an answer to your second question, now you’ve seen me, meet me outside the Palm House of the Jardin Botanique, at 3 p.m.  I’ll get off somehow for an hour just then.  Don’t forget!  It’s close by here—­along the Rue Royale.  Be absolutely punctual, or else I shall think that having seen me, seen how changed I am, you have altered your mind.  I shall quite understand; only I may come back at five minutes past three and accept General Tompkins.  Acquaintances ripen quickly in Brussels.”

* * * * *

In the Palm House—­or rather one of its many compartments; 3.5 p.m., on a beautiful afternoon in early December.  The sun is sinking over outspread Brussels in a pink and yellow haze radiating from the good-humoured-looking, orange orb.  There are no other visitors to the Palm House, at any rate not to this compartment, except the superintending gardener—­the same that cheered the last hours of Mrs. Warren.  He recognizes Vivien and salutes her gravely.  Seeing that she is accompanied by a gentleman in khaki he discreetly withdraws out of hearing and tidies up a tree fern.  Vivien and Michael seat themselves on two green iron chairs under the fronds and in front of grey stems.

Vivie:  “This is a favourite place of mine for assignations.  I can’t think why it is so little appreciated by young Brussels.  These palm houses are much more beautiful than anything at Kew; they are in the heart of Brussels, over which, as you see, you have a wonderful view.  It was much more frequented when the Germans were here.  With all their brutality they did not injure this unequalled collection of Tropical plants.  They made the Palm House an allowance of coal and coke in winter while we poor human beings went without.  I used often to come in here on a winter’s day to get warm and to forget my sorrows....

“Look at that superb Raphia—­what fronds!  And that Phoenix spinosa—­and that Aralia—­”

Rossiter:  “Bother the Aralia.  I haven’t come here for a Botany lesson.  Besides, it isn’t an Aralia; it’s a Gomphocarpus....  Vivie! Will you marry me?”