“I don’t, know,” said Lewisham. “I wanted to—that day, in Kensington Gardens. But I didn’t. I suppose I ought to have done so.”

“I think you ought to have done so.”

“Yes, I suppose I ought ... But I didn’t. Somehow—it has been hard. I didn’t know what you would say. The thing seemed so rash, you know, and all that.”

He paused blankly.

“I suppose you had to do it,” said Miss Heydinger presently, with her eyes on his profile.

Lewisham began the second and more difficult part of his explanation. “There’s been a difficulty,” he said, “all the way along—I mean—about you, that is. It’s a little difficult—The fact is, my life, you know—She looks at things differently from what we do.”

“We?”

“Yes—it’s odd, of course. But she has seen your letters—”

“You didn’t show her—?”

“No. But, I mean, she knows you write to me, and she knows you write about Socialism and Literature and—things we have in common—things she hasn’t.”