She said, ‘I’m happy to tell you that she has left the old grandmother about whom I was uneasy and gone to live with someone else; in Yarmouth, I believe.’

‘I’m glad, if that is a load off your mind,’ he said, and with such earnest kindness that her heart smote her for suspecting him. But I must suspect everybody, just for a little longer. To make up for that, she smiled at him, and he noticed again that delightful little crescent in her upper lip.

‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘whether you – and Miss Benson, of course – would have dinner with me. The routine food here is not very exciting, but’ – he looked at his watch – ‘we’re in good time. We could order anything you liked.’

‘That’s very kind of you. This evening I am in Miss Benson’s hands. She drove me in. I had to go to the Post Office to see about a parcel. She may wish to get back.’

‘I hope,’ he said, with just a degree of sourness in his voice, ‘that she will leave promptly, or dine before she drives you. I’m afraid that is her fourth Martini.’

‘She’s probably used to them.’

‘For one who doesn’t drink herself, you are very tolerant.’

‘Teachers and alcohol,’ she said, ‘remind me of a story. I expect you have heard it. About the teacher, a man, who was applying for a post?’

‘I don’t think I have.’

So she told him the story which Janet Lovelace had once told her. About the young man who, before the interview, was warned that one member of the appointment committee was a passionate abstainer. Suddenly, among the questions, this member shot out, ‘Mr Smith, does the name Haig mean anything to you?’ ‘Oh, yes; he was a Field Marshal in the First World War.’ Asked about Gordon, he replied that he was a General, killed at Khartoum; and of Booth, he founded the Salvation Army. Determined to trick him, the member of the committee finally said, ‘And what is Vat 69?’ The young man thought for a bit, and said, ‘I’m afraid I don’t really know. Could it be the Pope’s telephone number?’

Mr Freeman, whom, by some miracle, this story had hitherto passed by, was delighted by it and laughed out loud. Part of his delight was occasioned by the unexpectedness of such a story coming from this source, and his delight was in no way diminished when Miss Mayfield added:

‘Of course, I missed the point entirely when it was told to me, because I didn’t know the names were drinks.’

That, for some reason, struck him as one of the most endearing things he had ever heard any woman say.