The second interview, however, by a mere coincidence, took place at Lorraine’s flat. She was walking leisurely down Sloane Street one afternoon, after visiting her milliner’s, when she ran into the young giant going in the opposite direction.
“How so?...” she asked gaily, as is face lit up with a pleased smile, and he stopped in front of her. “Whither away at this hour? Are you chasing a brief?”
“Much too brief,” he told her. “I had to carry some important papers to a certain well-known Cabinet Minister; and he did not even vouchsafe me a glance of his countenance. I was given an acknowledgment of them by the footman, as if I had been a messenger boy.”
“Too bad. I think you deserve that another celebrity should give you a cup of tea, to redeem your opinion of the immortals. My flat is quite near, and I am now returning. Will you come?”
“Oh, won’t I?” he said boyishly, and turned back.
It was the fashionable hour in Sloane Street, when many well-dressed, well-known people are often seen walking, and when the road is full of private motors and carriages. Lorraine found herself moving still more slowly. She was accustomed to being gazed at herself, had in fact grown a little blasé of it, but the frank admiration bestowed on her giant amused and pleased her.
Covertly she watched, as she chatted up to him, for the tell-tale consciousness and perhaps heightened colour. But when he was looking back into her face he looked straight before him, over the heads of the admiring eyes, and paid no smallest heed to them. Neither was he in the least self-conscious with her. She wondered if he even realised that the tête-à-tête he accepted so simply would have been a joy of heaven to many. Anyhow, far from resenting his seeming want of due appreciation, she found it made him more interesting.
She spoke of Hal, and he immediately exclaimed: “Hal is a ripper, isn’t she? I can’t help teasing her, you know; it’s the best fun in the world.”
“Do you usually tease your feminine friends?” she asked. “I’ve no doubt you have a great many.”
“Oh, no, I haven’t. Men pals are far jollier.”