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left dust in my corners same as what you leave in yours, I’d ’ave got a rare old telling-off.’ There’ve been a lot of changes since I was twenty-two. Are you ’oping to be married?”
    â€œOh no,” said Ann, and heard Charles’ voice say “ Ann! ” in the back of her mind.
    Mrs. Halliday nodded.
    â€œTime enough,” she said. “If girls knew what was in front of ’em, they wouldn’t be in a nurry. When I was twenty-two I was walking out with the under groom, a very ’andsome young man and made the rottenest bad ’usband as you’d meet in a month of Sundays—but not to me, thank the Lord, though I cried me eyes out when he jilted me and took Dorcas Rudd for ’er pretty face, pore thing.” She became brisk again. “What wages are you asking?”
    â€œMrs. Twisledon gave me a hundred,” said Ann.
    Mrs. Halliday clicked with her tongue.
    â€œThat’s a terrible lot of money! But you’ll ’ave to settle it with Jimmy.” She chuckled. “Thinks ’e’s made of money these days, Jimmy does! And I won’t say ’e isn’t a clever lad, and a good son too. ’E don’t grudge me anything, I’ll say that for ’im.”
    â€œThen you’d like me to come, Mrs. Halliday?” said Ann. “You think I’d suit you?”
    Mrs. Halliday nodded with decision.
    â€œI know a lady when I see one,” she said.

CHAPTER V
    Ann rang Charles Anstruther up from a telephone box in the nearest post office. The roar of traffic from the great thoroughfare outside was suddenly dead as she pulled the door to behind her. A light flashed on in the ceiling, and after that Charles was saying,
    â€œAnn, is that you?”
    Ann said, “Yes,” a little faintly, because there had leapt into her mind the realization of what it might be to shut the door on the world and let it go by. The world shut out, and she and Charles shut in. An impossible dream, but unbearably sweet, as only a dream can be.
    There was nothing dreamlike about Charles’ voice as he said,
    â€œWhat’s the matter?”
    â€œNothing’s the matter.”
    â€œWhy did you speak like that?”
    â€œI didn’t speak like anything.”
    â€œYes, you did. Ann, are you going to dine with me to-night?”
    â€œNo, I can’t. Oh, Charles, I’ve got the job! Isn’t it marvellous? What did you say?”
    â€œI said damn,” said Charles.
    â€œBeast!” said Ann. “And when I told you I’d been living on dry bread!”
    â€œAnn!”
    â€œTo-night,” said Ann in a gloating voice, “I shall be dining with Mr. James Halliday. I should think we’d have hot-house peaches, and turtle soup, and asparagus, and strawberries.”
    â€œOut of season,” said Charles morosely.
    â€œDarling Charles, that’s why . It’s that sort of house—all plush, and gilding, and lincrustaed halls.”
    â€œWho is this man?” said Charles in a voice that jarred the telephone.
    â€œDarling Charles, you’ll bust the wire if you roar like that, and then I shan’t be able to tell you about my nice job. But perhaps you don’t want to hear.”
    â€œWho is this man?” said Charles, still with a good deal of vigour.
    â€œIt’s all quite proper and respectable,” said Ann. “He’s old Mrs. Halliday’s son, and I’ve been hired at the princely salary of a hundred and twenty pounds a year to listen whilst old Mrs. Halliday talks.”
    â€œThen why are you dining with Mr. Halliday?”
    â€œBecause Mrs. Halliday doesn’t dine. She has what she calls ’a bite of supper and bed’.”
    Charles said, “Dine with me.” Then after a pause he said her name—just “Ann”; but his voice made it sound like “Ann darling .”
    Ann took a step back as if he were there and