238 ANGEL PAVEMENT

"Oh, the man was a complete fool," she was saying,
in that deep bass voice of hers. "I told him to have a
look at the mag. Tut the mag. right/ I told him, 'and
the whole thing will be right. Clean those points a bit,
to start with/ By this time, he'd taken the mag, out and
was staring at it like a stuck pig."

"Marvellous!" cried one of the bright children. They
all thought Ingleton-Dodd "the very last word."

" 'Oh, give it to me/ I said? and snatched it out of his
hand. Then I sent for the manager. 'Look here/ I said
to him, 'does anybody in this place know how to time a
mag.?' You should have seen his face."

Awful creature! She ought to have seen Norman
Birtley's face. He was looking at Ingleton-Dodd with
fascinated repulsion written clearly on his simple and
expressive features. He greeted Miss Matfield con-
fusedly, dropping his hat when he shook hands. His
hands were hot and damp, and there was a glint of per-
spiration on his pink forehead. He had not changed at
all, except that he now wore rimless eyeglasses and his
sandy moustache was a trifle more in evidence. He was
only a year or so older than Miss Matfield and, as he was
far less sophisticated than she was, not at all at home in
London, which he only visited at long intervals, she felt
the older of the two. '

"How are you, Lilian?" he inquired, smiling ner-
vously. "You're looking very well."

"Am I? I don't feel it. I'm feeling pretty foul/J

"You're not, are you?" He looked at her anxiously,
"What's wrong? You haven't got anything the matter
with you, have you? Are you seeing a doctor?"

This obvious concern ought to have pleased her, for
it was very flattering. But these questions, demanding