Miss Fawcett, blushing furiously, retreated to the door. Harding stepped into the room. "Please don't go!" he said. "I ought not to have listened to you, or to have said that. I apologise."
Miss Fawcett, who wanted to make a calm and sensible reply, said something quite incoherent and subsided.
Inspector Harding said haltingly: "When I see you I keep forgetting I'm here — purely professionally. I've no right to — I ought to know better than to -" He broke off evidently feeling that he had embarked on a hopeless sentence.
Miss Fawcett, observing his flounderings, recovered the use of her tongue and was understood to say, though in a very small voice, that she quite understood.
"Do you?" said Inspector Harding, grasping the edge of the table. "Do you, Dinah?"
Miss Fawcett nodded, and began to trace invisible patterns on the table with one forefinger. "Well, I — well, I think I do," she replied carefully. "When you aren't being professional — I mean — well, anyway, I quite understand."
"As soon as I've done with this case," said Inspector Harding, "there's something I'm going to ask you. I've been wanting to ever since I set eyes on you."
"More — more cross-examinations?" inquired Miss Fawcett, with a noble attempt at lightness.
"No. A very simple question requiring just "Yes", or — or "No", for an answer."
"Oh!" said Miss Fawcett, sketching another and more complicated pattern on the table. "I don't think I should dare say "No" to a policeman."