THE INTERVIEW HAD BEEN ARRANGED TO TAKE place in London at half-past three on a Saturday afternoon. This was a time so extremely convenient to Miss Mayfield that she was disposed to regard it as providential. It had saved her from the embarrassment of having to ask for time off to attend an interview in which she might not be successful, and from which she might be obliged to return to face her present Head’s resentment. In her diffident attempt to maintain secrecy she had left Alchester without the precaution of obtaining a testimonial. This she recognized as the action of a fool, but she had taught in the ugly Midland town for a bare two years, and she carried in her shabby handbag a coolly eulogistic report of her twenty years’ work in Africa. If that did not suffice, and if the interview showed any sign of leading to a new appointment, then would be time enough to approach Miss Stevens and break the news that she was contemplating a move.

Canon Thorby had written, ‘Claridge’s Hotel would be convenient for me, since I have another appointment there earlier in the day. I shall be waiting for you and if you ask at the desk, someone will point me out to you.’

He wrote on thick smooth paper which justified the term ‘cream-laid’. His writing was small, elegant, meticulously legible. It called up an imaginary vision of the writer, plump, rubicund, with a fringe of silvery hair and tranquil blue eyes. Kindly, perhaps a trifle pompous.

To Miss Mayfield, whose experience of such places was negligible, the hotel seemed very large, very impressive and full of women whose clothes in no way resembled her own. As she entered, the thought came and remained with her for half a minute, that a new hat might have been a wise investment. She countered this with the certainty that it would also have been a waste, and self-indulgent into the bargain; a hat was a hat, and the one she wore was adequate. Being, though shy, almost entirely without self-consciousness, she asked for Canon Thorby and followed the lordly young man who set out to glide her, with an outward composure that belied her inner trepidation.

Canon Thorby had secured a corner table, half masked by a huge bowl of long-stemmed roses, freesias and white lilacs in unseasonable proximity. From behind this floral screen he was watchful, and was on his feet, regarding her speculatively and then with a welcoming smile before she was within speaking distance. He was quite unlike her mental picture of him, being tall and spare, with a reddish-brown, weathered complexion and a full head of rust-coloured hair, just touched with grey at the temples. His eyes, however, were blue and tranquil.

They shook hands and Miss Mayfield sat down and replied to his questions regarding her journey, his comment on the coldness of the November weather.