The man was looking at her with those blue, all-seeing eyes of his, which made her turn her face aside a little. He thought her comely, almost beautiful, in her shyness, and he took command of the situation himself at once.

“Would you care to sit down?” he asked, presuming she would not. The door stood open.

“No thanks! Sir Clifford wondered if you would⁠ ⁠…” and she delivered her message, looking unconsciously into his eyes again. And now his eyes looked warm and kind, particularly to a woman, wonderfully warm, and kind, and at ease.

“Very good, your Ladyship. I will see to it at once.”

Taking an order, his whole self had changed, glazed over with a sort of hardness and distance. Connie hesitated, she ought to go. But she looked round the clean, tidy, rather dreary little sitting-room with something like dismay.

“Do you live here quite alone?” she asked.