He looks all around, behind him,as though she were some kind of imbecile. She rolls her eyes and rightly senses that he is trouble. Although she guides him towards a table, he walks the other way -- to a table for six, indicating that he might be joined later by some others. In fact, he tells her that a table for six might even turn out to be too small for his party. He settles down with his newspaper and orders coffee (charged to his room). You get the feeling he is not a real pleasant man. Somehow you might imagine one would call him Crabapple behind his back.The scene shifts to the "...Type for You" Secretarial Agency. An obviously distraught woman throws her shoe at the front door, puts it back on and storms away.
Jean Pargetter owns the agency and because of her desire to run the best secretarial service possible she's quite the taskmaster. That's not what they call her behind her back, though. She's referred to as either Crabapple or Iron Drawers. Her office staff consists of her secretary, Sandy and her daughter Judith Hanson, a twice-married, twice-divorced woman who shares a house with her mother. Jean asks Judith to go and make peace with the client who's been complaining about the incompetent secretary they sent him. Jean adds that if he's a heterosexual, showing some leg might not be a bad idea. We later learn that this client is Lionel and it appears that the afore-mentioned shoe-tosser was the offending secretary. (Later Judith tells Lionel that placating is a habit of hers. He figures it's "Better than spitting at pigeons.")
Judith meets Lionel and does, indeed, flirt with him. He says he likes her because she's so obviously chatting him up. This won't be the last time he calls her "artless." She tells him that the firm will provide him with another secretary. He needs a secretary because he's writing a book about his life in Kenya. This is a running joke throughout the series: Lionel says his book is called "My Life in Kenya". Someone asks what the book is about. "My life in Kenya" is the answer, spoken as if it should be rather obvious. Lionel doesn't strike anyone as Mr. Excitement right off the bat. Or ever.
Jean inquires about what Lionel was like and when Judith emphasizes his funny sad eyes Jean wonders "he doesn't dress like a clown does he?". She refers to Lionel as "Koko." When she finds out that Judith is having dinner with him that night she says she hopes he hasn't put any conditions on their continuing business relationship. Jean, who seems somewhat sensitive about her age these days -- someone asked her if she had a bus pass -- has the following exchange with Judith about Lionel:
JEAN: Is he young?
JUDITH: No.
JEAN: Old?
JUDITH: Mature.
JEAN: (smirking sort of laugh) Old.
JUDITH: About your age.
JEAN: Oh, MATURE.
Later that night Lionel arrives at Judith's house in a taxicab. He asks the driver to wait and comes in to meet mom, who's working at home with Sandy. Judith introduces them and they say a polite hello, but something just doesn't feel right to either Jean or Lionel. He's appears to be uncomfortable when he meets Jean almost as though he has seen her before. She seems to feel the same way. Sandy notices her odd behaviour. When Judith is ready, Jean and Lionel say goodbye to one another and the couple leaves. Jean can't seem to concentrate on what she and Sandy were doing. Sandy wonders if maybe Jean might not want to pay for this unproductive time. Judith and Lionel have dinner, during which time Lionel gets an awful cramp in his foot and is forced to remove his shoe and sock, which really disconcerts the waiter. 
He also spends a great deal of time asking about Jean, whichJudith doesn't quite understand. He makes an attempt to hit on Judith, which he insists was not half-hearted. He finally tells Judith he knew Jean long ago. When he brings her home, he tells Judith he'd rather not come inbut that if Jean remembers him at all she'd know why he wouldn't come in.
Though it's quite late and Sandy has already left, Judith is surprised to find Jean dressed up. She's presses Jean and eventually she's shown a picture in an album:
JUDITH: It's you. It's him. When was this taken?
JEAN: Well you can see we were both standing in front of a cave dressed in skins.
JUDITH: You're smiling at each other.
JEAN: Yes, we just discovered how to make fire.
Jean explains that they met when she was 19 years old and nursing at Middlesex and Lionel was doing his National Service commissioned to the Middlesex Regiment. They met not at the Dodge 'ems, but at "some dance or other" and they went outtogether for three months. He then got posted to Korea. All the while Judith is listening to this as though Jean is reciting a Barbara Cartland novel and suggests absent-mindedly 
"...and then he was killed?" to which Judith reminds herthat she only just had dinner with him that evening. Judith continues to anticipate Jean's story and concludes that she is Lionel's daughter. "Math never was your strong point." Jean rolls her eyes. Judith wants to know what happened next, but Jean explains that there was no next -- they never saw one another again. He never called.
An angry Judith shows up back at Lionel's hotel the next day:
JUDITH: You rat.
LIONEL: You schizophrenic?
JUDITH: No, I'm bloody mad.
LIONEL: I didn't like to use the word.
It becomes clear after a short time that this has all been a major misunderstanding when Lionel says that he actually did send a letter. Apparently Jean just never got it. Jean had no address in Korea and couldn't find Lionel and each assumed the other had just gone off the idea of the two of them together.
Lionel goes to her office, but Sandy informs him that Jean has left. Jean goes to the hotel, but Lionel isn't there. They pass in the revolving doors and Jean joins Lionel in the lobby for drinks. He orders a scotch and soda and half a pint of cider for Jean. Had he been in touch with her over the yearshe would have discovered she no longer drinks cider. He's not the man he was either. Formerly a beer drinker, he has now given it up -- "too many trips" he claims. They both appear to be hesitant about rekindling their friendship and seem uncomfortable about their appearing to have a "wrinklies reunion." He says her hair is different -- he has some grey too. She does a double take.
He tells her that he came there not to compare wrinkles, but to set the record straight. She asks why he didn't write. "Let's not play games," he says, "why didn't you write?" "Where to?" she asks, "Second Lieutenant Hardcastle somewhere in Korea?" He reminds her that he sent her the full address as soon as he had one. She tells him that she never got the letter. Well, he sent it. Suddenly it hits him that the letter he sent never arrived -- it was all as ridiculously simply as that. Jean supposes it is in some rack somewhere. Lionel thinks it could be in the Imperial War Museum for all they know -- letter to a sweetheart circa 1953. Or still in Korea, she suggests, disintegrated in the soil. She'd like to think it fed a tree. Lionel tells her that people put newspaper on their compost heaps -- they might have ended up as Korean Compost. Jean prefers thinking that the letter is in the Imperial War Museum. So does Lionel. "You didn't bother to write a second bloody letter, did you?" Jean asks. He says that absence tends to make the heart suspicious -- he was afraid that she'd lost interest and that it had all been too good to be true. She tells him that she waited and waited. "Making strenuous efforts to find me in the meantime?" he asks. She makes excuses. He tells her that the fact is that she wrongfully assumed that he hadn't written and she did nothing.
They are interruped by Judith, who joins them briefly to make sure everything is going well. She asks what they were talking about and they tell her that they were discussing youth, pride and stupidity. Judith thinks it's wonderful that everything is all right now. She leaves. Jean tells him that Judith is a dying breed -- a romantic. "What? Us?" He asks. Jean tells him that she doesn't think Judith was referring to Edward and Mrs. Simpson. "Now?" He tells her that's absurd. "Look at us." Jean's offended and tells him she'd rather not be included in that remark. He tells her that she's aged. Although she's speaking in low tones she looks about ready to scream at him: "I know I've aged -- who do you think you are? Peter Pan?" Of course not -- he'd look silly in tights. She remembers he had knobbly knees. They laugh at the thought. She tells him she has a business to run. He has to make revisions on his book. She asks if he still wants someone. He looks startled and she says she's talking about a secretary. She'll fix it. He says they must have dinner or something. Or lunch, she says. He'll call her at the office. Or she'll phone him at the hotel. They say goodbye. She leaves. The waitress asks if he'll be dining in the hotel that evening. He tells her that no, he'll be checking out of the hotel that afternoon and he asks her to take the cider away.