And after luncheon she gave Georgie the slip, and within an hour, as if by instinct found herself in the region of Mayfair.

There she strolled about, ravished by glimpses of the Green Park and deeply pleased with all she saw. Here was the old order, beautiful and old-established, (a little dead perhaps at the core – Georgie would certainly have called it rotten) yet still by Joanna unpossessed. And what a finely grained, modest surface it presented! Here surely was the London of Louis. Its appearance was extraordinarily touching to her. Here she could have walked, thought she, all the afternoon and evening, seeing her lover on every hand: could have walked for the sheer enjoyment of looking and finding him. For that she should find in this Mayfair rooms for herself seemed scarcely a possibility. Louis had warned her, laughing, that she would most likely have to be content with Maida Vale or Kilburn or West Hampstead. And he ought to know. He himself lived at Campden Hill. Mayfair indeed!

It was at this very moment that Joanna drew level with a break in the low line of shops which now ran opposite. The break was caused by a square, rather wide archway which gave vent between the shops while leaving the dwelling-houses above intact. That is to say it carried a room directly over it. Joanna stopped and stared intently. It was a room surely enough. It had an old jutting window which was bare of curtains. And in that window all Joanna’s dreams of a lodging in London were immediately crystallized.

She crossed the road with a wildly beating heart.

She was still in Mayfair, but had slipped in her wanderings into one of those little colonies of working people which are a distinguishing feature of fashionable London. The more prohibitive the quarter, the more certain one may be of finding such a dependence tucked away in it; and very often, as in this case, it will happen that the dependence retains a living dignity and a gaiety which have some time since departed from the greater houses of the neighbourhood.

Here there was a smell of mews, and sounds of various busyness came forth from the court to which Joanna’s archway gave entrance. Beneath the flat-faced old brick houses the shops looked neat and prosperous, and shone with an attractive light-hearted sort of respectability. On the left hand corner of the archway an open fruit stall spread itself like a downturned fan that had been painted in bright, triangular sections, green and red and yellow. On the right hand corner was an undertaker’s. Next door was a saddler’s.

But it was upon the undertaker’s that Joanna concentrated her attention. For in this window, positively as if created by her strong desire, a card was displayed. It advertised –

Two Unfurnished Rooms to Let.

Apply 5 Chapel Court.