When she had dressed to go home, and was telephoning for a taxi, he said: ‘I wonder what it would be like, being married to someone like you — hell!’

‘You’d enjoy it?’ asked Ella, demure.

‘It’d be — man! a woman you can talk to, and have such fun in the sack too — man, I can’t even imagine it!’

‘Don’t you talk to your wife?’

‘She’s a fine girl,’ he said soberly. ‘I think the world of her and of the kids.’

‘Is she happy?’

This question so surprised him that he leaned up on his elbow to consider it and her — he was frowning with seriousness. Ella found herself liking him enormously; she sat dressed, on the side of the bed, liking him. He said, after thinking it out: ‘She’s got the best house in the town. She’s got everything she ever asks for, for the house. She’s got five boys — I know she wants a girl, but perhaps next time … She has a fine time with me — we go out dancing once or twice a week, and she’s always the smartest girl wherever we go. And she’s got me — and I’m telling you Ella, I don’t mean to boast, I can see from your smile when I say it — but she’s got a man who’s doing pretty well.’

Now he lifted down the photograph of his wife from where it stood by the bed and said: ‘Does she look like an unhappy woman?’ Ella looked at the pretty little face and said: ‘No, she doesn’t.’ She added: ‘I could no more understand a woman like your wife than fly.’

‘No, I don’t think you would, at that.’

The taxi was waiting; and Ella kissed him and left, after he had said: ‘I’ll ring you tomorrow. Boy, but I want to see you again.’

Ella spent the following evening with him. Not out of any promise of pleasure; but out of liking. And besides, she felt that if she refused to see him, he might be hurt.

They had dinner again, and in the same restaurant. (‘This is our restaurant, Ella,’ he said sentimentally; as he might have said: ‘This is our tune, Ella.’)

He talked about his career.

‘And when you’ve passed all your examinations and attended all the conferences, what then?’

‘I’m going to try for Senator.’

‘Why not President?’

He laughed with her, at himself, good-natured as always. ‘No, not President. But Senator — yes. I tell you, Ella, you watch for my name. You’ll find it, fifteen years’ time, head of my profession. I’ve done everything I said I would do up till now, haven’t I? So I know what I’ll do in the future. Senator Cy Maitland, Wyoming. Want to bet?’

‘I never make bets I know I’ll lose.’

He was leaving for the States again next day. He had interviewed a dozen top doctors in his field, seen a dozen hospitals, attended four conferences. He was finished with England.