CHAPTER XVIIMeade had scarcely shut the door upon Giles, when Ivy Lord put her head round the kitchen door.
“If you please, Miss Meade, I’d like to go out to the post.”
“All right, Ivy.”
“Will you be going out, miss?”
“No, I don’t think so—not tonight.”
Ivy hesitated.
“Mrs. Underwood said she wouldn’t be back till half past seven. If you wouldn’t mind lighting the gas under the steamer at seven—full till the water’s hot, and then down to a point——”
Meade found a smile. It took exactly five minutes to reach the pillarbox at the corner and return. The post was most undoubtedly a young man. She said,
“Of course I will.”
She went back into the sitting-room to wait for Giles. She heard Ivy come running out of her room in a hurry to be off. The door of the flat opened and shut. She trie
