400 ANGEL PAVEMENT

actually walk into the office at any moment.

"I think I'd better have a talk to Mr. Smeeth about
that letter," said Mr. Dersingham, putting it on one side.
"You might tell him, Miss Matfield—" But now two
doors were flung open and banged to in rapid succession,
Mr. Golspie had arrived.

"Hello, Dersingham," he boomed, clapping and rub-
bing his hands. "Hello, Miss Matfield. Brrrrr—but it's
devilish cold here. I feel it creeping up and down my
bones. Funny thing, but it's colder here than it ever is
in places that pretend to be really cold, twenty below
and all the rest of it. Damp, I suppose. Ten years of
this would do me in. Well, how's everything? Making
money?"

"All right, Miss Matfield/' said Mr. Dersingham,

Miss Matfield could not decide whether she had
exaggerated the size of Mr. Golspie's moustache or
whether he had had it trimmed. The fact remained that
it seemed considerably smaller. Another fact remained,
and that was that she felt disappointed. She walked out
of the room feeling absurdly disappointed. It was quite
unreasonable, but there it was.

This feeling persisted throughout the day. Mr.
Golspie came into the general office and shouted genial
greetings at everybody. Afterwards, when Mr. Dersing-
ham had gone, he dictated a few letters to her, but he
said little or nothing, and neither that day nor any of
the days before Christmas did he once refer to her visit
to the Lemmala. There was no particular reason why
he should, but still it was disappointing, and he was
disappointing, and everything was disappointing.
• Those last few days before Christmas were so awful
that she found herself looking forward more and more