"No, I know; he used to keep an ironmonger's shop."
"So I've heard. Would you care to come round again under—h'm—more competent guidance?"
She laughed lightly and fixed him at once. "Thanks, very much, I will, and I shall bring a friend, an awfully clever girl, a B.Sc. She's interested in these sort of things, and mother."
"I shall be really delighted; as long as you come, I don't care who you bring."
On their way home after it was all over, Darwen said to Carstairs, "Truly, fortune favours the bold. Do you remember that passage of old Nick's about fortune and women, that they both favoured the young? Youth is simply a matter of indiscretions; many old fools of sixty ought to be wheeled round in perambulators."
Carstairs paused to light a cigarette, his face illuminated by the fitful flare of the match, was pre-occupied, absent. "From which I conclude," he observed between the puffs, "that you have been indiscreet."
"Not indiscreet, simply bold, and you, you seem to have something on your mind."
"Ye—es! It's being borne in upon me very forcibly that there is no girl that I have met yet to compare in face or form or intelligence, that is to say, my idea of intelligence, with a certain gipsy maiden in Scotland, or at least, Chilcombe."
Darwen's eyes gleamed—the thrill of the waltz, the excitement of the evening, was in his blood. "Damme! I must see this girl. I observe that in many things our tastes agree, perhaps I may be able to relieve you of her."
"No! By Jove! you won't!" Carstairs faced round abruptly and looked him in the eyes.