The gas was not carried up to the attics of No. 22 Canning Street. Late-comers had to stumble in the dark up the last flight of stairs, and bark their shins over the brooms and pails which Beatrice invariably left standing about on the landing. One evening in April Lettice was sitting at work, brow buried in her hands, tensely courting the Muse, when she was startled by a sudden tremendous clatter. The door burst open and Denis fell into the room, in company with a mop and a banister brush.
"Dear, dear!" said Lettice with her usual inadequacy.
"I wish you'd not keep an ironmonger's shop on your landing," said Denis, annoyed, and rubbing his knee.
"You, you—you are so violent!" Lettice protested in her pianissimo drawl. She went outside for a moment. "There, I've put them all away in the cupboard, so you won't have to break your poor nose when you go home," she consoled him. "Now, how nice it is to see you again! And what have you been doing with yourself all this long time?"
"Selling four monoplanes to the War Office," said Denis, with the simple satisfaction of bygone days. "What do you think of that?"
"No! have you really?"
"A man I used to know in the Sappers came over to Dent-de-lion and fixed up the order last Saturday. It's been in the air for some time, but of course I couldn't say anything till it was settled. Wandesforde's awful pleased. It's no end of a leg-up for us."
"Four all at once!" cooed his sympathetic hostess.
"Yes, the Government's rather keen on the Air Service these days. There's a lot goin' on we don't hear anything about—a lot; and they don't mean to be caught napping."
"Did your friend tell you that?" asked Lettice, interested, as always, in politics.