“It’s nothing. Nothing at all.”

   “I should like to see it, if you don’t mind.”

   She took the letter and read aloud: “Lukie, dear. Just back from two years’ travel. You two might blow in to lunch one day. Any old day. Chops and tomato sauce. Yours, Jona.”

   “Most extraordinary,” said Mabel. “Why does she call you Lukie?”

   “Well, damn it all,” said Luke, “she couldn’t call me lucky. Oh, what does it matter? We were boy and girl together. Innocent friends of long standing.”

   “And what does this mean? Chops and tomato sauce? Chops! Gracious Heavens! And tomato sauce.”

   “It’s just a joke. Silly, no doubt.”

   “It might be an allusion to your complexion at the present moment. It might be a mere substitute for

   some endearing word or promise, agreeably to a preconcerted system of correspondence.”

   He had an uneasy feeling that he had heard or read all this before somewhere.

   “Merely a joke,” he pleaded. “And what does it matter?”

   “She’s a cat, anyhow. She’d better keep off the grass, and I’ll tell her so. What did she say when she saw you this morning?”

   “Hardly anything. Her husband was with her. I say, how on earth did you know?”

   “Her husband was not with her when I met her. But do you know what this sudden return of yours means? This unusual desire to apologize for your manners, and to take me out for the day? Guilty conscience. I’m going into the garden to cut flowers for the luncheon table.”

   “Let me come with you and hold the scissors?”

   “If you hold the scissors, how the dickens am I going to cut the flowers? You’re really too trying.”

   No, it was not going well. More self-control would be needed. A happy idea struck him.

   “Didn’t you say that Mrs. Smith had a stable sole—I mean, a sable stole, in church or somewhere?”

   “And you don’t try that on either.”

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