She flushed.  “It was silly of me.  But why shouldn’t it be a lovers’ meeting?” she added audaciously.  “If nothing had happened, you two would have been married by this time—­”

“Not till June.”

“Oh, yes, you would.  I should have seen about that—­a ridiculously long engagement.  Anyhow, it was only your illness that broke it off.  You were told you were going to die.  You did the only honourable and sensible thing—­both of you.  Now you’re in splendid health again—­”

“Stop, stop!” I interrupted.  “You seem to be entirely oblivious of the circumstances—­”

“I’m oblivious of no circumstances.  Neither is Eleanor.  And if she still cares for you she won’t care twopence for the circumstances.  I know I wouldn’t.”

And to cut off my reply she clapped the receiver of the telephone to her ear and called up Eleanor, with whom she proceeded to arrange a date for the interview.  Presently she screwed her head round.

“She says she can come at four this afternoon.  Will that suit you?”

“Perfectly,” said I.

When she replaced the receiver I stepped behind her and put my hands on her shoulders.

“‘The mother of mischief,’” I quoted, “’is no bigger than a midge’s wing,’ and the grandmother is the match-making microbe that lurks in every woman’s system.”

She caught one of my hands and looked up into my face.

“You’re not cross with me, Simon?”

Her tone was that of the old Agatha.  I laughed, remembering the policeman’s salute of the previous night, and noted this recovery of my ascendancy as another indication of the general improvement in the attitude of London.

“Of course not, Tom Tit,” said I, calling her by her nursery name.  “But I absolutely forbid your thinking of playing Fairy Godmother.”

“You can forbid my playing,” she laughed, “and I can obey you.  But you can’t prevent my thinking.  Thought is free.”

“Sometimes, my dear,” I retorted, “it is better chained up.”

With this rebuke I left her.  No doubt, she considered a renewal of my engagement with Eleanor Faversham a romantic solution of difficulties.  I could only regard it as preposterous, and as I walked back to Victoria Street I convinced myself that Eleanor’s frank offer of friendship proved that such an idea never entered her head.  I took vehement pains to convince myself Spring had come; like the year, I had awakened from my lethargy.  I viewed life through new eyes; I felt it with a new heart.  Such vehement pains I was not capable of taking yesterday.

“It has never entered her head!” I declared conclusively.