I myself had the trifling care on my mind of who was going to sit with Evie while I lorded it at the Berkeley. Ordinarily I should have counted on her aunt, but Miss Angela had announced that she must go to Guildford that day on some business or other connected with the late Mrs Merridew's will. There was, of course, Miss Levey, but I still considered Verandah Cottage too humble for the friend of Lord Ernest and the confidante of the President of the Board of Trade. Evie protested that she would be quite all right alone, but that I would not hear of.
"I'll tell you what," I said. "Give Billy Izzard dinner that evening. I'll go round and ask him to sit with you. That'll be the best thing."
"I should be quite, quite all right, dear," she said again.
"No," I replied, "I'll get Billy. I'll write a note to him now. Then I'll show you the other suit."
The other suit did not flutter her quite so much. It was just as exquisite in its way, an iron-grey hopsack, with trousers for which I had had to peel three times, but it did not speak quite so plainly of functions and high assemblages. I really did not know where I was going to keep these two suits, as I had no trousers press, and our wardrobe accommodation was exceedingly limited; and I discovered, on arriving home early on the evening of the Berkeley dinner, that I had no summer overcoat fit for my _grande tenue_. As the choice lay between taking a cab the whole of the way and wearing my heavy winter ulster, I chose the latter alternative; and Evie tied my bow and turned up the bottoms of those trousers that pre-supposed broughams and wicker wheel-guards and alightings on red druggets under awnings built out over pavements.
"Billy'll be here in an hour," I said. "I'll look in on him as I pass. You'll be quite all right till then, and I'll be back as soon as I can. Good-bye, darling."
She stood in skirt and delaine blouse at the ivy-green, glass-panelled door, and waved her hand as I turned the corner. I sought the bus terminus in the High Street, treading carefully, for it had been raining, and there were puddles to avoid. The bus started. Twenty minutes later I got down opposite my old place with the gargoyles and terra-cotta ornaments. I mounted the stairs and tapped at Billy's door, entering as I tapped.