As he walked up the park drive to the town he recalled with distinctly
pleasurable emotion the first time he had encountered Mrs. Levitt, the
vision of the smart little lady who had stood there by the inner gate,
the gate that led from the park into the grounds, waiting for his
approach with happy confidence. He remembered her smile, an affair of
milk-white teeth in an ivory-white face, and her frank attack: "Forgive
me if I'm trespassing. They told me there was a right of way." He
remembered her charming diffidence, the naive reverence for his
"grounds" which had compelled him to escort her personally through them;
her attitudes of admiration as the Manor burst on her from its bay in
the beech trees; the interest she had shown in its date and
architecture; and how, spinning out the agreeable interview, he had gone
with her all the way to the farther gate that led into Lower Wyck
village; and how she had challenged him there with her "You must be Mr.
Waddington of Wyck," and capped his admission with "I'm Mrs. Levitt." To
which he had replied that he was delighted.

And the time after that--Partridge had discreetly shown her into the
library--when she had called to implore him to obtain exemption for her
son Toby; her black eyes, bright and large behind tears; and her cry:
"I'm a war widow, Mr. Waddington, and he's my only child;" the flattery
of her belief that he, Mr. Waddington of Wyck, had the chief power on
the tribunal (and indeed it would have been folly to pretend that he had
not power, that he could not "work it" if he chose). And the third time,
after he had "worked it," and she had come to thank him. Tears again;
the pressure of a plump, ivory-white hand; a tingling, delicious memory.

After that, his untiring efforts to get a war job for Toby. There had
been difficulties, entailing many visits to Mrs. Levitt in the little