Upon Wolsey George slammed the door; started for the
station.
Palace Gardens, St. John’s Wood, was his aim.
There could be no work, nor even thought of work,
until again he had met his lady. Yet how to meet
her cost him another of the wrestles with conjecture
that had been his lot since the cab carried her away.
At first it was easy work. He would call, he
decided, with polite inquiries; and as he pictured
the scene his spirits rose. The thunder-figure
that had poked a bow at him from the cab would come
dragonish into the drawing-room where he waited.
Her he would charm with the suavity of his manners;
she would doff the dragon’s skin; would say
(he had read the scene in novels), “You would
like to see Miss So-and-so?”
The girl would come in ....
With her appearance in his thoughts George’s
mind swung from coherent reasoning into a delectable
phantasy ....
A sudden thought swept the filmy clouds-landed him
with a bump upon hard rock. He was not supposed
to know their address. How, to the dragon, could
he explain the venal trick by which he had acquired
it? Now he beheld a new picture. Himself
in the drawing-room; to him the dragon; her first
words, “How did you know where we lived?”;
his miserable answer.
This was very unpleasant. As a red omnibus took
him on towards St. John’s Wood he decided that
the meeting must be otherwise effected. The girl
must sometimes go out. She had called herself
a mother’s-help; it suggested children; and,
if children, doubtless her task to take them walking.
Well, he would take up a post near to the house, and
wait—just wait.
And then there came a final thought that struck him
cold and staring. What if she did not live at
the house?—was merely about to visit there
when the accident befell the cab?
It was a sorely agitated young man that stepped off
the ’bus and struck up Palace Gardens.
Of his Mary.
Excursions In The Memory Of A Heroine.
AS that cab swung round the corner bearing away the
nameless haunter of George’s dreams, she to
the red wrath beside her turned, and, “Oh, Mrs.
Chater,” she said, “I hope you are not
hurt!”
By a mercy Mrs. Chater was not hurt. By a special
intervention of Providence she had escaped a fearful
death. Whether she would ever recover from the
shock was another matter. Whether the shock would
prove to be that sudden strain on her heart which she
had been warned would end fatally, might at any moment
be proved. Much anybody, except her darling children,
would care if she were brought home dead in this very
cab. Never had she known a heart to act as hers
was acting now— thumping as if it would
burst, first quickly then slowly. Perhaps Miss
Humfray would feel it, and give her opinion.
