Bloomsbury!) escaped the sordid commercial eye of the keeper of furnished
lodgings, retaining jealously something of the old-time dignity and reserve
that were its pride in the days before Society swarmed upon Mayfair and
Belgravia.

Its houses loomed tall, with many windows, mostly lightless--materially
aggravating that air of isolate, cold dignity which distinguishes the
Englishman's castle. Here and there stood one less bedraggled than
its neighbors, though all, without exception, spoke assertively of
respectability down-at-the-heel but fighting tenaciously for existence.
Some, vanguards of that imminent day when the boarding-house should reign
supreme, wore with shamefaced air placards of estate-agents, advertising
their susceptibility to sale or lease. In the company of the latter was
Number 9.

The American noted the circumstance subconsciously, at a moment when Miss
Calendar's hand, small as a child's, warm and compact in its white glove,
lay in his own. And then she was on the sidewalk, her face, upturned to
his, vivacious with excitement.

"You have been so kind," she told him warmly, "that one hardly knows how to
thank you, Mr. Kirkwood."

"I have done nothing--nothing at all," he mumbled, disturbed by a sudden,
unreasoning alarm for her.

She passed quickly to the shelter of the pillared portico. He followed
clumsily. On the door-step she turned, offering her hand. He took and
retained it.