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Jeremy hesitated.

Then—

“No,” he said quietly. “I can’t.”

There was a silence.

The man smiled thoughtfully, staring straight ahead. With a faint frown the girl regarded the leisurely disintegration of the logs in the grate. The distant throb of ragtime filtered into the room, only to subside, as though abashed, before the stately lecture of a Vulliamy clock.

“Let us talk,” said Eve, “of the past.”

“Good,” said Jeremy. “I’ll begin. If I’d been brought up to be a plumber, instead of a diplomat——”

“Oh, I wish you had,” said Eve. “My bath’s gone wrong again.”

“What, not the Roman?”

“The same,” said Eve.

“There you are,” said Broke. “I told you not to have it. You cannot introduce a relic of the Stone Age into a super-flat. It can’t be done. If you must have a circus leading out of your bedroom, the only thing to do is to set it right up and then build a house round it.”

“We’re off,” said Eve, bubbling.

Jeremy swallowed.

“What’s the trouble?” he demanded.

“Won’t empty,” said Eve. “I’m—I’m having it taken away.”