“I believe you’re cleverer than some of us think,” said Miss Middleton, a trifle anxiously.

“I sometimes think so too.  However, to get back to what we were saying—­I came here to recover my usual calm, and I shan’t be at all calm if I’m only going to get this one dance from you.  As an old friend of the family, who has broken most of the windows, I beg for another.”

“To get back to what I was saying—­I’ve simply got to do a lot of duty dances.  Can’t you take me to the Zoo or the Post-Impressionists instead?”

“I’d rather do both.  I mean all three.  No, I mean both.”

“Well, perhaps I would, too.”

“You know, I think you’d be doing good.  I’ve had a horrible week—­canvassing, and standing in the streets, and shouting, and reading leaders, and arguing, and saying, ’My point is perfectly simple,’ and—­and—­swearing, and all sorts of things.  It’s awfully jolly to—­to feel that there’s always—­well, all this,” and I looked round the room, “to come back to.”

“Isn’t that beautiful Miss Ellison I introduced you to just now part of ’all this’?”

“Oh yes, it’s all part; but—­”

Miss Middleton sighed.

“Then that nice young man with the bald head will have to go without.  But I only said I’d see if I could give him one.  And I have seen, haven’t I?”

The band really stopped this time, and we found a comfortable corner.

“That’s very jolly of you,” I said, as I leant back lazily and happily.  “Now let’s talk about Christmas.”

III.—­ANOTHER MILESTONE

“You’re very thoughtful,” said Miss Middleton.  “What’s the matter?”

“I am extremely unhappy,” I confessed.

“Oh, but think of Foster and Hobbs and Woolley.”

I thought of Foster; I let my mind dwell upon Hobbs.  It was no good.

“I am still rather sad,” I said.

“Why?  Doesn’t anybody love you?”

“Millions adore me fiercely.  It isn’t that at all.  The fact is I’ve just had a birthday.”

“Oh, I am sorry.  Many happy—­”

“Thank you.”

“I thought it was to-morrow,” Miss Middleton went on eagerly.  “And I’d bought a cricketing set for you, but I had to send it back to have the bails sawn in two.  Or would you rather have had a bicycle?”

“I’d rather have had nothing.  I want to forget about my birthday altogether.”

“Oh, are you as old as that?”

“Yes,” I said sadly, “I am as old as that.  I have passed another landmark.  I’m what they call getting on.”

We gazed into the fire in silence for some minutes.

“If it’s any comfort to you,” said Miss Middleton timidly, “to know that you don’t look any older than you did last week—­”

“I’m not sure that I feel any older.”

“Then, except for birthdays, how do you know you are older?”