"Your aunt's calling you," he said. 

 Mrs. Mills was out on the pavement, scooping at the air with her right arm. Gertie instinctively obeyed the order; Mr. Trew kept pace with her. The three entered the shop, and Mrs. Mills, with a touch of her heel, closed the door, went inside the tobacco counter, and, across it, spoke rapidly and vehemently, with the aid of emphatic gesture, for five minutes by the clock. Mr. Trew, disregarding rules of etiquette, sat down, whilst the two stood, and became greatly interested in the mechanism of a cigar-cutter. 

 "Who told you all this, aunt?" asked the girl calmly, when Mrs. Mills had finished. 

 "The lady customer who was here when you went out. Do you deny it? Of course, if it isn't correct that you've been seen walking about with a young swell, I've lost my temper for nothing." 

 "Girls will be girls," interposed Mr. Trew. 

 "Not in my house." 

 "It's all perfectly correct," announced Gertie. 

 Mrs. Mills looked around in a dazed way. 

 "Trew," she cried, "what's to be done?" 

 "You've had your say, old beauty," he remarked slowly.  "Now let me and her go into the parlour and have some music—music of a different kind." 

 The girl hesitated, and looked through the window. He touched her shoulder.  "I sh'd take it as a special favour." 

 He came out a few minutes later, and mentioned to Gertie's aunt that he had a message to deliver. The music within ceased; the lid of the pianoforte closed. 

 "Trew," she said. 

 "Queen of my heart." 

 "This isn't the only upset I've had. Who do you think it was in that ambulance cart this afternoon? I hopped across to have a look." Leaning over the counter, she whispered. 

 "That complicates matters, so far as she is concerned," he admitted. "I hoped he'd vanished for good. We shall want all the diplomacy that we've got stored away to deal with this." 

 

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