IX
BY a coincidence, the two men arrived at ten minutes to twelve. They found Nancy in a rather pathetic state of excitement. She had been running up and down stairs and from one room to another and she met them with the elaborate calm of one about to give himself up to a capital operation.
"We have a nice day for it, anyway," she said bravely. Any agreeable condition, however remote it might at first appear from the business at hand, was welcome. "Tell me," she asked Tom, "do you think I'm dressed suitably?"
"Perfectly."
"Some social workers go down in the slums in the worst old clothes they can find, but I've heard that the people down there like to see nice things, so I compromised. This is just a gingham dress, you see, but I'm wearing my pearls."
"I should think that's just right. Didn't Henry, the Labour expert, help you?"
"Oh, I didn't bother him. He's not interested, you see."
Leofwin, who had been fidgeting around for an opening, now burst forth. "I came early," he said, "to find out if I can't do the lungs too; I've been practising them along with the heart, you know, and I think it might go well dashing them in somewhere. What?" Leofwin's "what's" were noteworthy. They were in a higher key than the rest of his conversation, which was itself high, and he drew them out to almost exquisite lengths. They were nearly all that was left of his week-end with the patron in Suffolk.
"Oh, dear me, no," replied Nancy with considerable spirit.