“I’m very much obliged to you, Mr. Bron,” she said at parting. “I feel I’ve wasted your evening.”
“I can assure you,” said Mr. Bron earnestly, “that if this is a waste of time, then time has no use!”
She laughed.
“That is a pretty speech,” she said, “and I will let you call to-morrow and see me.”
He took a careful note of the address; it was an exclusive maisonette in Bloomsbury Square; and the next evening found him ringing the bell, but this time he was not in uniform.
He left at ten o’clock, an ecstatic man who held his head high and dreamt golden dreams, for the fragrance of her charm (as he wrote her) “permeated his very being.” Ten minutes after he had gone, the girl came out, closed the door behind her and went out into the street, and the idler who had been promenading the pavement threw away his cigar.
“Good evening. Miss Bassano,” he said.
She drew herself up.
“I am afraid you have made a mistake,” she said stiffly.
“Not at all. You’re Miss Bassano, and my only excuse for addressing you is that I am a neighbour of yours.”