’Let me fill my pipe again.  Yes, you can do it for me.  That reminds me of a story Harvey Munden tells.  A man he knew, a doctor, got married, and there was nothing his wife wouldn’t do for him.  As he sat with her one evening, smoking, a patient called him into the consulting-room.  He had only just lighted a fresh pipe, and laid it down regretfully.  ‘I’ll keep it in for you,’ said his wife.  And she did so, with dainty and fearful puffs, at long intervals.  But the doctor was detained, and when he came back—­well, the poor wife had succumbed to her devotion.  She never kept in his pipe again.

Nancy tried to laugh.  She was in her own chair again, and sat resting her cheek upon her hand, gazing at the fire.

’How is it, Lionel, that no one ever knocks at your door when I’m here.’

‘Oh, very simple.  I sport the oak—­as you know.’

’But don’t you think some friend of yours might see a light in your window, and come up?’

‘If so, il respecte la consigne.’

’No, no; I don’t like you when you begin to use French words.  I think it reminds me of once when you did it a long time ago,—­and I thought you—­never mind.’

Tarrant laughed.

’Weren’t they strange—­those meetings of ours at Champion Hill?  What did you think me?  Arrogant?  Insolent?  That is my tendency with strangers, I admit.’

‘But I was asking you a question,’ said Nancy.  ’You mean that no one would knock, if he saw your outer door closed.  But what would they think?’

’No doubt—­that I was working.  I am supposed to be secretly engaged on some immortal composition.’

Nancy pondered.

‘I do hope no one that knows you will ever see me coming or going.’

‘What could it matter?  They wouldn’t know who you were.’

’But to have such things thought.  I should feel it just as if they knew me.  I believe I could never come again.’

‘Why, what’s the matter with you?’ Tarrant asked.  ’You have tears in your eyes.  You’re not well to-day.’  He checked himself on an unwelcome thought, and proceeded more carelessly.  ’Do you suppose for a moment that any friend of mine is ass enough to think with condemnation of a girl who should come to my rooms—­whatever the circumstances?  You must get rid of that provincialism—­let us call it Camberwellism.’

‘They wouldn’t think it any harm—­even if—?’

‘My dear girl, we have outgrown those ancestral prejudices.’  Tarrant’s humour never quite deserted him, least of all when he echoed the talk of his world; but his listener kept a grave face.  ‘We have nothing to do with Mrs. Grundy’s morals.’

‘But you believe in a morality of some kind?’ she pursued with diffidence.  ‘You used the word “immoral” just now.’