and greeted the doctor with a flashing smile

She raised her hand with a free unaffected gesture, and greeted the doctor with a flashing smile. "Well, Miss Cresswell, I haven't seen you for quite a long time." "Two days," she said solemnly, "but I suppose doctors who know all the secrets of nature have some very special drug to sustain them in trials like that." "Don't be unkind to the profession," he laughed, "and don't be sarcastic, to one so young. By the way, I have never asked you did you get your flat changed?" She shook her head and frowned. "Miss Millit says she cannot move me." "Abominable," he said, and was annoyed. "Did you tell her about Beale?" She nodded vigorously. "I said to her, says I," she had a trick of mimicry and dropped easily into the southern English accent, "'Miss Millit, are you aware that the gentleman who lives opposite to me has been, to my knowledge, consistently drunk for two months--ever since he came to live at Kroomans?' 'Does he annoy you?' says she. 'Drunken people always annoy me,' says I. 'Mr. Beale arrives home every evening in a condition which I can only describe as deplorable.'" "What did she say?" The girl made a little grimace and became serious. "She said if he did not speak to me or interfere with me or frighten me it was none of my business, or something to that effect." She laughed helplessly. "Really, the flat is so wonderful and so cheap that one cannot afford to get out--you don't know how grateful I am to you, doctor, for having got diggings here at all--Miss Millit isn't keen on single young ladies." She sniffed and laughed. "Why do you laugh?" he asked. "I was thinking how queerly you and I met." The circumstances of their meeting had indeed been curious. She was employed as a cashier at one of the great West End stores. He had made some sort of purchase and made payment in a five-pound note which had proved to be counterfeit. It was a sad moment for the girl when the forgery was discovered, for she had to make up the loss from her own pocket and that was no small matter.