Somebody became audible in the shop outside.
We started back from one another with flushed faces and bright and burning eyes.
“We can’t talk here,” I whispered with a confident intimacy. “Where do you go at five?”
“Along the Embankment to Charing Cross,” she answered as intimately. “None of the others go that way...”
“About half-past five?”
“Yes, half-past five...”
The door from the shop opened, and she sat down very quickly.
“I’m glad,” I said in a commonplace voice, “that these new typewriters are all right.”
I went into the inner office and routed out the paysheet in order to find her name—Effie Rink. And did no work at all that afternoon. I fretted about that dingy little den like a beast in a cage.
When presently I went out, Effie was working with an extraordinary appearance of calm—and there was no look for me at all....