of you to have fetched her coat and so clever of you to have noticed
that it was getting chilly. And when you sent her flowers on her
birthday, she would explain to you the flow of delight she had felt and
perhaps a tiny little moment of surprise until she realised that of
course it wasn't surprising at all, but just exactly what she knew at
the bottom of her heart you would do--you, who were such a wonderful
friend. Only the flowers were far more beautiful than she could have
imagined and how had you been able to find them?

George had a photograph of June on his writing table. People were apt to
stop short at it and say: "Is that the _great_ June Rivers, the writer?"
And he would brush the question aside--one must be loyal--and say: "She
is a friend of mine," rather stiffly, as if they had said that she had
run away from her husband or been found drunk.

He looked at it this morning, and suddenly he felt that he must see
her--a feeling she frequently inspired. He knew that she hated the
telephone, so he sent her a little note.

"Dear June: Thank you for your beautifully-bound book. May I come round
this afternoon? I long to see your hair."

He wondered why he had put that: it was a silly sort of thing to say; so
he scratched out the "hair" very carefully so that you could see
nothing, and substituted "you." Then he wrote "George" and, after a
moment's hesitation, added the postscript:

"Of course you saw that Macaulay had taken four wickets for two runs?"

Half an hour later her answer reached him.