But when, arrived at the flat, Betty Masterman, with a malicious pout of her red lips, imparted the news that "the Wilberforce man" had rung up to suggest himself for tea on the following afternoon, Mollie Fullerford's mental dignity gave way to an ardor of anticipation which made her feel--as she expressed it to herself just before falling asleep--"a perfect little idiot"; and when, next afternoon--to all outward appearances his undisturbed self--Jimmy was heralded into the sitting-room, the girl felt extraordinarily grateful to the "man in Sloane Street" under whose ministrations she had spent the morning.
All the same, she felt uncommonly nervous. Watching her James as he arranged his long bulk in the most comfortable of the three chairs, handing him his tea, listening to the easy flow of small talk between him and Betty, Mollie found it impossible to realize that this could be the creature about whose physical and mental qualities her imagination had woven its tissue of dreams. That he and she were participators in a tragic romance; that if he asked her to marry him (and she knew subconsciously, even though consciously denying the possibility, that he would ask her) she would have to refuse--seemed possibilities connected rather with the heroine of some magazine story than with her own demure self.
Tea finished, Betty made the telephone in her bedroom an excuse to leave the pair alone; clicked the door on them; and pattered away in her high-heeled shoes.
"You're not looking as well as you were when I saw you last," managed Wilberforce, after a minute's self-conscious silence.
"Aren't I?" Mollie would have given a good deal to run away from him, to run after Betty.
"No. You haven't been ill or anything, have you?"
"Ill!" She forced a smile to her lips. "Rather not. I've been quite all right."
They gazed at each other. Then, abruptly, Jimmy said:
"Mollie, what's happened to us?"
"To us?" she queried shyly.