He also writes a few things for the scientific magazines….”

“Doesn’t he have any hobbies … fun?”

“Oh yes. Once a week, on Sundays, he finds some hill to climb…. Very invigorating.”

“You mean Hampstead and Highgate?”

“He wouldn’t call them hills. Nothing less than Dorking to Guildford with a final run up the Hog’s Back. I went with him once. Never again. Eighteen miles at four miles an hour. Not my idea of fun. But then, perhaps it isn’t his either. Perhaps he does it for self-discipline or mortifying the flesh or something. He told me he never let rain stop him.”

I wasn’t surprised at that because I like walking in rain myself. A few days later (and it was raining, by the way) I saw him coming out of the A.B.C. after lunch. He wore no hat or mackintosh and after standing a moment in the shop doorway to put up his coat collar he suddenly sprinted across the road towards the College entrance. Then he saw me and changed course, still at a sprint. He went out of his way to greet me. “Oh, Miss Waring…. I’d been wondering if I should meet you before … before we meet again.”

That didn’t seem to make too much sense, so I just smiled till he went on: “I’m coming to your house next Thursday. Your father invited me—he says there’ll be nobody else there. That shows he did notice what a fool I was at the party.”

“It also shows he doesn’t think any less of you for it.”

“I hope so … but I also hope he doesn’t think I really mind other people. What I mean is, I wouldn’t like him to put himself out for me.”

There wasn’t much I could say. It didn’t seem at all likely that my father would put himself out for such an unimportant person; on the other hand, it was rather rarely that we were ever at home without a crowd. Afterwards I found that it was my mother who had arranged it.

That Thursday evening began rather well, despite the fact that our landlord dropped in to dinner uninvited. Or perhaps partly because of it, for the talk got on the subject of painting, and that led to music and then my mother went to the piano and played Chopin. She was a fairly good amateur pianist and liked to play if there were no notable musicians present; she also sang, the diseuse style—you called her an English Yvette Guilbert if nobody else said it first. That evening I thought she sang rather better than usual and I told her so.

“And what does Mr. Bradley think?” she asked from the piano stool.

It was a silly question because it invited flattery and she might have known he wasn’t the type to have it ready. He just looked uncomfortable and walked over to the piano. “I can sing too,” he said.

My mother jumped up laughing. “Why, of course—that’s wonderful.