‘Look here, Miss Propert,’ he said. ‘There’s enough of this.’

She laughed straight out.

‘Oh, I am so glad you said that,’ she said. ‘I was going to let you turn the door-handle before I spoke.’

He put down his hat again.

‘Oh, you were, were you?’ he said. ‘Well, what were you going to say when I did turn the door-handle?’

‘I think you are rather brutal,’ she said. ‘You don’t help me out at all.’

‘Not an atom,’ he said.

‘You know quite well. First I was going to apologise for all the thoughts that had ever been in my mind about you and the hospital. I was an utter fool not to have known that you were the most generous——’

He interrupted her.

‘Never mind that.’