Mary shook her head.

“Don’t think me unkind,” she said.  “I really must not begin visiting.  I have only just time for a hurried lunch, and then I must look in at the office and get down to Bermondsey.”

“You might just as well have that hurried lunch with me,” Sybil declared.  “I’ll send you anywhere you like afterwards in the carriage.”

“It is very kind of you,” Mary answered, “but my visiting days are over.  I am not a social person at all, you know.  My role is usefulness, and nothing else.”

“You are too young to talk like that,” Sybil said.  “I am ten years older than you are,” Mary reminded her.  “You are twenty-eight,” Sybil answered.  “I think it is beautiful of you to be so devoted to this work, but I am quite sure a little change now and then is wholesome.”

“In another ten years I may think of it,” Mary said.  “Just now I have so much upon my hands that I dare not risk even the slightest distraction.”

“In another ten years,” Sybil said, “you will find it more difficult to enlarge your life than now.  I can’t believe that absorption in any one thing is natural at your age.”

Mary looked steadfastly down at the horses.

“We must all decide what is best for ourselves,” she said.  “I have not your disposition, remember.”

“Nothing in the world,” Sybil said, “would convince me that it is well for any girl of your age to crowd everything out of her life except work, however fine and useful the work may be.  Now you have admitted that except for Mr. Brooks and the people you have met in connection with his work you have no friends in London.  I want you to count me a friend, Miss Scott.  You have been very kind to me, and made everything delightfully easy.  Why can’t you let me try and repay it a little?”

“I have only done my duty,” Mary answered, quietly.  “I am supposed to show new helpers what to do, and you have picked it up very quickly.  And as for the rest—­don’t think me unkind, but I have no room for friendships in my life just now.”

“I am sorry,” Sybil answered, softly, for though Mary’s tone had been cold enough, she had nevertheless for a single moment lifted the curtain, and Sybil understood in some vague manner that there were things behind into which she had no right to inquire.

The two girls parted at Trafalgar Square, and Sybil, still in love with the fresh air, turned blithely westward on foot.  In the Haymarket she came face to face with Brooks.

He greeted her with a delightful smile.

“You alone, and walking,” he exclaimed.  “What fortune.  May I come?”

“Of course,” she answered.  “You know where I have come from, I suppose?”

He glanced at her plain clothes and realized that the odour of disinfectants was stronger even than the perfume of the handful of violets which she had just bought from a woman in the street.

“Stepney!” he exclaimed.