‘What an excellent fellow Carnaby is!’ he remarked unexpectedly.  ’I have been seeing a good deal of him lately —­ as you know, I think?’

‘So I have heard.’

‘I like him all the better because I am rather sorry for him.’

‘Why?’

’Don’t you feel that he is very much out of place?  He doesn’t belong to our world at all.  He ought to be founding a new civilisation in some wild country.  I can sympathise with him; I have something of the same spirit.’

‘I never observed it,’ said Alma, allowing her glance to skim his features.

’Perhaps because you yourself represent civilisation in its subtlest phase, and when I am with you I naturally think only of that.  I don’t say I should have thriven as a backwoodsman; but I admire the type in Carnaby.  That’s one of our privileges, don’t you think?  We live in imagination quite as much as in everyday existence.  You, I am sure, are in sympathy with infinite forms of life —­ and,’ he added, just above his breath, ‘you could realise so many of them.’

‘I shall be content with one,’ replied Alma.

‘And that ——?’

She nodded towards the concert platform, where, at the same moment, a violinist stepped forward.  Redgrave gazed inquiringly at her, but she kept silence until the next interval.  Then, in reply to his direct question, she told him, with matter-of-fact brevity, what her purpose was.  He showed neither surprise nor excessive pleasure, but bent his head with a grave approving smile.

’So you feel that the time has come.  Of course I knew that it would.  Are any details arranged? —­ or perhaps I mustn’t ask?’

‘I wanted to talk it over with you,’ she answered graciously.

After the concert they had tea together.  Redgrave was very attentive to Miss Leach, whom his talk amused and flattered.  Alma’s enterprise was discussed with pleasant freedom, and Redgrave learnt that she had decided to employ Mr. Felix Dymes as her agent.  The trio set forth at length on their homeward journey in a mood of delightful animation, and travelled together as far as Victoria.

‘I haven’t said that you can rely on me for all possible assistance,’ Redgrave remarked, as he walked along the roaring platform by Alma’s side.  ‘That is a matter of course.  We shall meet again before long?’

‘No doubt.’

‘In Porchester Terrace perhaps?’

‘Perhaps.’

Alma met his eyes, and took away with her the consciousness of having dared greatly.  But the end was a great one.

In spite of the bad weather, Mrs. Frothingham had travelled up from Basingstoke.  Alma found her in the drawing-room, and saw at a glance that there had been conversation on certain subjects between her and Harvey; but not until the next day did Mrs. Frothingham speak of what she had heard, and make her private comments for Alma’s benefit.

’I thought Harvey was joking, dear.  Have you reflected how many reasons there are why you shouldn’t ——?’