Friends of mine at school were in love with girls. The parents of these girls were always hilarious nuisances, eager to tar and feather Cupid and make a clown of him; or, if not that, they were unpleasantly ironic and seemed to have forgotten all about love except as something that ailed puppies and calves. The Wolffs took me seriously as a human being. I had hoped for a furtive romance, unknown to anyone else in the world. But here was Mrs Wolff saying that they were always at home on Sunday afternoons between four and six, and if I liked to look in, they would be delighted to see me. I asked if tomorrow would be too soon. No, tomorrow would do beautifully. They were delighted to meet me. They hoped we would meet often.

During all of this, Judy said very little, and when I shook hands with her at parting—an awful struggle; was this the thing to do, or not; did one shake the hands of girls?—she cast down her eyes.

This was something I had never seen a girl do. Caroline’s friends always looked you straight in the eye, especially if they had something disagreeable to say. This dropping of the gaze almost disem-bowelled me with its modest beauty.

But the publicity of it all! Can I have been so obvious? On the way home even Netty remarked that I certainly seemed to be taken with that dark girl, and when I asked her haughtily what she meant she said she had eyes in her head like anybody else, and I had been lallygagging so nobody could miss it.

Netty was in high good humour. Dunstan Ramsay had been at Crossings, invited, I suppose, as Headmaster of a neighbouring school. He had paid Netty a good deal of attention. That was like Buggerlugs; he never overlooked anybody, and he seemed to put himself out to be gallant to women nobody else could stand. He had introduced Netty to Miss Gostling, the Headmistress of Bishop Cairncross’s, and had said she was the mainstay of the Staunton household while Father had to be away on war business. Miss Gostling had been quite the lady; hadn’t put on any airs. But it was a good thing that place was a school and not a hotel, because their coffee would choke a dog.

As we were going to bed, Caroline came to my room to thank me for the flowers. “I must say you did it in style,” said she, “and you must have shopped around for quite a while to get yellow roses like that for five dollars. I know what these things cost; this is identical with the bunch Buggerlugs sent Ghastly Gostling, and I’ll bet it didn’t cost him a cent less than eight.”

I was in a mood to dare much. “Who sent you the other flowers?” I asked.

“Scotland Yard suspects Tiger McGregor,” she replied. “He’s been lurking for a couple of months. Cheap creep! It looks like about a dollar seventy-five”—this with a glint of her pawnbroker’s eye—“and he’ll probably expect me to go to the Colborne dance with him on the strength of it. Maybe I will, at that…. By the way, you and I are invited to tea at Judy Wolff’s tomorrow. I worked that for you, so clean yourself up and do me credit.”