But we shall be very happy to see you at supper time, seven o'clock.
Cordially yours,
PHILIP KENT.
It came over me that this was pretty dirty work we were putting up on the poor gentleman, and I suddenly felt thoroughly ashamed of myself. I don't know whether any of the others came back to the Boar for lunch, or not. I put on my cap and went for a long walk in the country, out toward Tettenhall Wood. I didn't come back until tea time.
VII
As Johnny Blair approached number 318, Bancroft Road, a little before seven o'clock that bland March evening, he bore within his hardy breast certain delicacies, remorses, doubts, and revulsions. But all these were transcended by his overmastering determination to see this superb and long-worshipped maiden near at hand.
Bancroft Road proved to be a docile suburban thoroughfare, lined with comfortable villas and double houses, each standing a little back from the street with a small garden in front. A primrose-coloured afterglow lingered in the sky, and the gas lights along the pavement still burned pale and white. Just as the Rhodes Scholar passed number 302 he saw a feminine figure run down the steps of a house fifty yards farther on, cross the pavement, and drop a letter into the red pillar box standing there. Even at that distance, he distinguished a lively slimness in the girlish outline that could belong to no other than the Incomparable Kathleen. He hastened his step, casting hesitance to the wind. But she had already run back into the house.
It would have added to the problems Mr. Blair was pondering could he have read the letter which had just dropped into the post-box. Perhaps it will somewhat advance the course of the narrative to give the reader a glimpse of it.