“Yes, Geoffrey told me. It’s not much of a site for an individual shop, is it? No way out to the back alley and no cellars. Ours and Kellett’s meet in the middle, I think. At least, ours go under an awfully long way. Yes, I think they must, because you can see the patching up they had to do when the bomb fell, and it was only a little one, they say, a fire bomb.”

“And now Kellett’s own the site. What on earth do they want it for? I should have thought they were big enough already.”

“I know. Actually—” She hesitated, and flicked her hair rapidly. “That’s one reason why I feel it would be rather off to cut Geoffrey. You see, I used to sit on that bomb site after lunch in the fine weather. It was so nice and sheltered. Then when Kellett’s took over they complained to Mr. Majendie that I was trespassing.”

“Rather petty. They haven’t started to build even now. You wouldn’t have been in the way.”

“Mr. Majendie was furious, Mrs. Millet said, not with me but with Kellett’s, for sending the message across so rudely. Anyway, I can’t sit there any more. And you see, Geoffrey used to come back and sit there too, once or twice, so I’m sure he must have got into trouble over it, though he never said so. And it would be on my account.”

He drew up at a red light and glanced at her. He saw her slide back her sleeve with one finger and look down at her watch.

“You want to catch a particular train?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She moved her hand guiltily.

“Do your parents know where you are?” he asked, as the car went forward.

She gave her head an extra violent toss. “I don’t have to tell them everything I do. Actually, they were out,” she admitted.

“And you’re hoping to be home before them, so that you needn’t explain that you trailed twice across London to return a glove to a strange man.”

“You’re not strange,” she said, rather sulkily.

“How so? Not strange, and you heard me speak for the first time this morning?”

“Oh, you can tell by what people look like.”

“Fatal error. You’re heading for disaster.”

“Well, voices—”

“Worse still. Don’t you know the old song? Do not trust him, gentle maiden, Though his voice be—whatever it is.”

She laughed. “How odd you should say that. Your voice isn’t in the least what I expected. I thought it would be all incisive and arresting—”

“Arrest—”

“You know, commanding, and that. And instead it’s all lazy and drawly. You’re not American, are you?”

“No. My mother was, from the South, too.”

“Ah, then that accounts for it.”