"Lor'," she thought, "I didn't know him; it's the stationer's foreman." And the very next evening they met in the same street; she was out for a little walk, he was hurrying to catch his train. They stopped to pass the time of day, and three days after they met at the same time, and as nearly as possible at the same place.
"We're always meeting," he said.
"Yes, isn't it strange?… You come this way from business?" she said.
"Yes; about eight o'clock is my time."
It was the end of August; the stars caught fire slowly in the murky London sunset; and, vaguely conscious of a feeling of surprise at the pleasure they took in each other's company, they wandered round a little bleak square in which a few shrubs had just been planted. They took up the conversation exactly at the point where it had been broken off.
"I'm sorry," Fred said, "that the paper isn't going to be put to better use."
"You don't know my mistress, or you wouldn't say that."
"Perhaps you don't know that novels are very often stories about the loves of men for other men's wives. Such books can serve no good purpose."
"I'm sure my mistress don't write about such things. How could she, poor dear innocent lamb? It is easy to see you don't know her."
In the course of their argument it transpired that Miss Rice went to neither church nor chapel.