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“The girl’s a masochist,” he said, adding with deeper gloom, “and Lucy says she’s a virgin.”

“There’s plenty of time for her. The two troubles are often cured simultaneously.”

“That’s all very well, but she’s staying another ten days. She never stops talking about you.”

“Does Lucy mind?”

“Of course she minds. It’s driving us both nuts. Does she write you a lot of letters?”

“Yes.”

“What does she say?”

“I don’t read them. I feel as though they were meant for somebody else. Besides they’re in pencil.”

“I expect she writes them in bed. No one’s ever gone for me like that.”

“Nor for me,” I said. “It’s not really at all disagreeable.”

“I daresay not,” said Roger. “I thought only actors and sex-novelists and clergymen came in for it.”

“No, no, anybody may—scientists, politicians, professional cyclists—anyone whose name gets into the papers. It’s just that young girls are naturally religious.”

“Julia’s eighteen.”

“She’ll get over it soon. She’s been stirred up by suddenly meeting me in the flesh after two or three years’ distant devotion. She’s a nice child.”

“That’s all very well,” said Roger, returning sulkily to his original point. “It isn’t Julia I’m worried about, it’s ourselves, Lucy and me—she’s staying another ten days. Lucy says you’ve got to be nice about it, and come out this evening, the four of us. I’m sorry, but there it is.”

So for a week I went often to Victoria Square, and there was the beginning of a half-secret joke between Lucy and me in Julia’s devotion. While I was there Julia sat smug and gay; she was a child of enchanting prettiness; when I was absent, Roger told me, she moped a good deal and spent much time in her bedroom writing and destroying letters to me. She talked about herself, mostly, and her sister and family. Her father was a major and they lived at Aldershot; they would have to stay there all the year round now that Lucy no longer needed their company in London. She did not like Roger. “He’s not very nice about you,” she said.

“Roger and I are like that,” I explained. “We’re always foul about each other. It’s our fun. Is Lucy nice about me?”

“Lucy’s an angel,” said Julia, “that’s why we hate Roger so.”

Finally there was the evening of Julia’s last party. Eight of us went to dance at a restaurant. Julia was at first very gay, but her spirits dropped towards the end of the evening. I was living in Ebury Street; it was easy for me to walk home from Victoria Square, so I went back with them and had a last drink. “Lucy’s promised to leave us alone, just for a minute, to say good-bye,” Julia whispered.

When we were alone, she said, “It’s been absolutely wonderful the last two weeks. I didn’t know it was possible to be so happy. I wish you’d give me something as a kind of souvenir.”

“Of course. I’ll send you one of my books, shall I?”

“No,” she said, “I’m not interested in your books any more. At least, of course, I am, terribly, but I mean it’s you I love.”

“Nonsense,” I said.

“Will you kiss me, once, just to say good-bye.”

“Certainly not.”

Then she said suddenly, “You’re in love with Lucy, aren’t you?”

“Good heavens, no. What on earth put that into your head?”

“I can tell. Through loving you so much, I expect. You may not know it, but you are. And it’s no good. She loves that horrid Roger. Oh, dear, they’re coming back. I’ll come and say good-bye to you tomorrow, may I?”

“No.”

“Please. This hasn’t been how I planned it at all.”

Then Roger and Lucy came into the room with a sly look as though they had been discussing what was going on and how long they should give us. So I shook hands with Julia and went home.

She came to my rooms at ten next morning. Mrs. Legge, the landlady, showed her up. She stood in the door, swinging a small parcel. “I’ve got five minutes,” she said, “the taxi’s waiting. I told Lucy I had some last-minute shopping.”

“You know you oughtn’t to do this sort of thing.”

“I’ve been here before. When I knew you were out. I pretended I was your sister and had come to fetch something for you.”

“Mrs. Legge never said anything to me about it.”