Bertie met her at Charing Cross, and escorted her the rest of the way.  He found it hard to realize that she had never been to London before, and it annoyed him a little.  It would have been all very well, he told himself, in a shy village maiden of eighteen, but in a woman of Joanna’s age and temperament it was ridiculous.  However, he was relieved to find that she had none of the manners of a country cousin.  Her self-confidence prevented her being flustered by strange surroundings; her clothes were fashionable and well-cut, though perhaps a bit too showy for a woman of her type, she tipped lavishly, and was not afraid of porters.  Neither did she, as he had feared at first, demand a four-wheeler instead of a taxi.  On the contrary, she insisted on driving all the way to Lewisham, instead of taking another train, and enlarged on the five-seater touring car she would buy when she had won her Case.

“I hope to goodness you will win it, ole girl,” said Bertie, as he slipped his arm round her—­“I’ve a sort of feeling that you ought to touch wood.”

“I’ll win it if there’s justice in England.”

“But perhaps there ain’t.”

“I must win,” repeated Joanna doggedly.  “You see, it was like this ...”

Not for the first time she proceeded to recount the sale of Donkey Street and the way she had applied the money.  He wished she wouldn’t talk about that sort of thing the first hour they were together.

“I quite see, darling,” he exclaimed in the middle of the narrative, and shut her mouth with a kiss.

“Oh, Bertie, you mustn’t.”

“Why not?”

“We’re in a cab—­people will see.”

“They won’t—­they can’t see in—­and I’m not going to drive all this way without kissing you.”

He took hold of her.

“I won’t have it—­it ain’t seemly.”

But he had got a good hold of her, and did as he liked.

Joanna was horrified and ashamed.  A motor-bus had just glided past the cab and she felt that the eyes of all the occupants were upon her.  She managed to push Albert away, and sat very erect beside him, with a red face.

“It ain’t seemly,” she muttered under her breath.

Bertie was vexed with her.  He assumed an attitude intended to convey displeasure.  Joanna felt unhappy, and anxious to conciliate him, but she was aware that any reconciliation was bound to lead to a repetition of that conduct so eminently shocking to the occupants of passing motor-buses.  “I don’t like London folk to think I don’t know how to behave when I come up to town,” she said to herself.