He strode off -- beaming. Little managed to cheer the man more than a saucy exchange with a woman who could hold her own in a conversation. And hold her own in a fun way. Not with Latin jokes or references to the London social season.

Just for that, he would fight extra hard to win her a treat. This might have involved making fumbling requests and earnest supplications to the woman behind the bar who eventually -- very charitably, she made sure to tell him -- parted with her lunch's dessert: a blueberry muffin.