In an ordinary drawing-room, it could scarcely have mattered if Bevis entertained her for a short space until his sisters' arrival; but in this little set of rooms it was doubtfully permissible for her to sit _tete-a-tete_ with a young man, under any excuse.

And the fact of his opening the front door himself seemed to suggest that not even a servant was in the flat.

A tremor grew upon her as she talked, due in part to the consciousness that she was glad to be thus alone with Bevis.
'A place like this must seem to you to be very unhomelike,' he was saying, as he lounged on a low chair not very far from her.

'The girls didn't like it at all at first.

I suppose it's a retrograde step in civilization.