"Your landlady. I called at your rooms."
"But why on earth didn't you send up a message to the office? Or 'phone me? I could have been with you half an hour ago if I'd known."
She answered: "I should have done, but—I thought you might not want to see me."
"Not want to see you? Good heavens, why shouldn't I?"
She shrugged her shoulder and then said: "Oh, never mind.... Let's go somewhere—where we can talk."
So she wanted to talk. Looking back on it now, it seems incredible that I didn't guess what her attitude would be. I suppose that Terry's letter had made me feel ever so slightly a hero, with its "I shall always thank you for what you did and said." Perhaps, subconsciously, I was in the mood that expects congratulation; at any rate, I wasn't prepared for censure. I looked out for a taxi, thinking I would take her to tea somewhere in the West End; but she said impatiently: "We can go there," and pointed to a Lyons tea-shop on the other side of Fleet Street. "But surely——" I began; and she interrupted sharply: "There, I tell you. This is business, not pleasure."
We threaded our way amongst the marble-topped tables, and as she passed a waitress she gave a rather defiant order for two cups of tea. Then she selected a table, sat down, and began immediately, with a sort of point-blank hostility: "So—after all—you've managed to persuade him?"
"You—you mean—Terry?"
And she answered, with that peculiar greenish glint in her eyes that made her look rather more wonderful than ever: "Yes, I mean Terry."
She was watching me mercilessly across the table; yet, even then, I couldn't see what cause she had to be displeased with me. I said, with genuine sincerity: "Well—honestly—don't you really think it'll be a good chance for him—going to Vienna with Karelsky?"