“Nor I a girl.”

“Oh, chuck it!” begged Rokeby, laughing.  “Do chuck it, will you?  Then you’ll be a dear too.  Look here, wouldn’t you like to go on somewhere after this?  I can telephone from here for seats.”

But she would not.  So they lingered on for awhile, talking and smoking over their coffee; and at last, when Julia looked across the room at the clock over the big mirrors, she was astonished and half vexed to find how much time had slipped by.  Then she insisted on going, but Rokeby insisted, too, upon his escort all the way home, and she did not gainsay him.  As he lifted her furs over her straight shoulders, waving away the waiter who hastened forward for the service, he murmured: 

“Were you bored?”

“I’ve loved it,” said Julia graciously, for she could be generous.

They walked home, according to her wishes, for it was a perfect night, and she a robust young creature who loved to give her energy a fling.  She walked with a peculiar effect of hope and buoyancy, in spite of her habit of sombre sayings, and Rokeby found a pleasure in noting her.  She looked what she was, a woman who had never yet encountered defeat.

This did not rouse in him the hunting desire to run her to earth, or to the dead wall against which she would sturdily plant that fine back of hers, and to vanquish her vainglory; but it made him softer, more protective of her than he had felt before; it made him wish that always she would keep this spirit and courage which burned like a brave candle in the mists of life.  As they said good-bye upon the imposing pillar-guarded steps of her boarding-house—­called in modern fashion a Ladies’ Club—­he held her hand longer than he had ever imagined he might want to hold the hand of this dragon of a girl.

“Be happy,” he adjured her, “don’t take other folks’ troubles upon you; let ’em settle their own.  Haven’t you enough to do?”

“I always feel that there is no end to what I could do,” Julia confessed.

“Yes, you generous thing!” Rokeby cried, “but don’t abuse yourself.  There—­you don’t want my advice, do you?  Forgive me!  And thank you so much for an interesting evening.  And—­and—­good night.”

He stood at the bottom of the steps watching reluctantly while Julia entered.  She had a latchkey which, ordinary possession as it was, seemed a symbol of her freedom.  While he would have granted it generously, the freedom somehow piqued Rokeby a little.  He stood smiling rather sadly till she shut the door.

A scurrying housemaid paused in her rush upstairs to say: 

“Oh, miss!  You were rung up on the ’phone just now, and I took the message.  From a Mrs. Kerr, miss, and she would be glad if you could go round at once.”

Julia stood still for a moment or two, keeping her hands very still in her muff.  “I expect ...” she began to think.  Then she rushed for the cab-whistle, which hung in the hall, pulled open the door, and whistled until a cab came creeping round the corner, feeling in its blind way for the invisible fare.  She ran down the steps, signalling, and it spurted up.