“Oh! you saw that?”

“I did; it oughtn’t to be allowed is what I say.”

“Free speech,” said Dinny. And the dog pressed his chin against her knee. “Is Foch good?”

“No trouble at all, miss. A gentleman, that dog; aren’t you, boy?”

The dog continued to press his chin on Dinny’s knee; and the feel of it was comforting.

When the cab stopped in Cork Street, she took a pencil from her bag, tore off the empty sheet of Wilfrid’s note, and wrote:

“You won’t do that, will you? Oh! don’t!”

Licking what was left of the gum on the envelope, she put her half sheet in and held it till it stuck. Giving it to Stack, she kissed the dog’s head and said to the driver: “The Park end of Mount Street, please. Good-night, Stack!”

“Good night, miss!”

The eyes and mouth of the motionless henchman seemed to her so full of understanding that she turned her face away. And that was the end of the jaunt she had been so looking forward to.

From the top of Mount Street she crossed into the Park and sat on the seat where she had sat with him before, oblivious of the fact that she was unattached, without a hat, in evening dress, and that it was past eight o’clock. She sat with the collar of her cloak turned up to her chestnut-coloured hair, trying to see his point of view. She saw it very well. Pride! She had enough herself to understand. Not to involve others in one’s troubles was elementary. The fonder one was, the less would one wish to involve them. Curiously ironical how love divided people just when they most needed each other! And no way out, so far as she could see. The strains of the Guards’ band began to reach her faintly. They were playing—Faust?—no—Carmen! Wilfrid’s favourite opera! She got up and walked over the grass towards the sound. What crowds of people! She took a chair some way off and sat down again, close to some rhododendrons. The Habanera! What a shiver its first notes always gave one! How wild, sudden, strange and inescapable was love! ‘L’amour est enfant de Bohème’… ! The rhododendrons were late this year. That deep rosy one! They had it at Condaford… Where was he—oh! where was he at this moment? Why could not love pierce veils, so that in spirit she might walk beside him, slip a hand into his! A spirit hand was better than nothing! And Dinny suddenly realised loneliness as only true lovers do when they think of life without the loved one. As flowers wilt on their stalks, so would she wilt—if she were cut away from him. “See things through alone!” How long would he want to? For ever? At the thought she started up; and a stroller, who thought the movement meant for him, stood still and looked at her. Her face corrected his impression, and he moved on. She had two hours to kill before she could go in; she could not let them know that her evening had come to grief. The band was finishing off Carmen with the Toreador’s song. A blot on the opera, its most popular tune! No, not a blot, for it was meant, of course, to blare above the desolation of that tragic end, as the world blared around the passion of lovers. The world was a heedless and a heartless stage for lives to strut across, or in dark corners join and cling together… How odd that clapping sounded in the open! She looked at her wrist-watch. Half-past nine! An hour yet before it would be really dark. But there was a coolness now, a scent of grass and leaves; the rhododendrons were slowly losing colour, the birds had finished with song. People passed and passed her; she saw nothing funny about them, and they seemed to see nothing funny about her. And Dinny thought: ‘Nothing seems funny any more, and I haven’t had any dinner.’ A coffee stall? Too early, perhaps, but there must be places where she could still get something! No dinner, almost no lunch, no tea—a condition appropriate to the love-sick! She began to move towards Knightsbridge, walking fast, by instinct rather than experience, for this was the first time she had ever wandered alone about London at such an hour. Reaching the gate without adventure, she crossed and went down Sloane Street. She felt much better moving, and chalked up in her mind the thought: ‘For love-sickness, walking!’ In this straight street there was practically nobody to notice her. The carefully closed and blinded houses seemed to confirm, each with its tall formal narrow face, the indifference of the regimented world to the longings of street-walkers such as she. At the corner of the King’s Road a woman was standing.

“Could you tell me,” said Dinny, “of any place close by where I could get something to eat?”

The woman addressed, she now saw, had a short face with high cheek-bones on which, and round the eyes, was a good deal of make-up. Her lips were good-natured, a little thick; her nose, too, rather thick; her eyes had the look which comes of having to be now stony and now luring, as if they had lost touch with her soul. Her dress was dark and fitted her curves, and she wore a large string of artificial pearls. Dinny could not help thinking she had seen people in Society not unlike her.

“There’s a nice little place on the left.”

“Would you care to come and have something with me?” said Dinny, moved by impulse, or by something hungry in the woman’s face.

“Why! I would,” said the woman. “Fact is, I came out without anything. It’s nice to have company, too.” She turned up the King’s Road and Dinny turned alongside. It passed through her mind that if she met someone it would be quaint; but for all that she felt better.

‘For God’s sake,’ she thought, ‘be natural!’

The woman led her into a little restaurant, or rather public-house, for it had a bar. There was no one in the eating-room, which had a separate entrance, and they sat down at a small table with a cruet-stand, a handbell, a bottle of Worcester sauce, and in a vase some failing pyrethrums which had never been fresh. There was a slight smell of vinegar.

“I COULD do with a cigarette,” said the woman.

Dinny had none. She tinkled the bell.

“Any particular sort?”

“Oh! Gaspers.”

A waitress appeared, looked at the woman, looked at Dinny, and said: “Yes?”

“A packet of Players, please. A large coffee for me, strong and fresh, and some cake or buns, or anything. What will you have?”

The woman looked at Dinny, as though measuring her capacity, looked at the waitress, and said, hesitating: “Well, to tell the truth, I’m hungry. Cold beef and a bottle of stout?”

“Vegetables?” said Dinny: “A salad?”

“Well, a salad, thank you.”

“Good! And pickled walnuts? Will you get it all as quickly as you can, please?”

The waitress passed her tongue over her lips, nodded, and went away.

“I say,” said the woman, suddenly, “it’s awful nice of you, you know.”

“It was so friendly of you to come. I should have felt a bit lost without you.”

“SHE can’t make it out,” said the woman, nodding her head towards the vanished waitress. “To tell you the truth, nor can I.”

“Why? We’re both hungry.”

“No doubt about that,” said the woman; “you’re going to see me eat. I’m glad you ordered pickled walnuts, I never can resist a pickled onion, and it don’t do.”

“I might have thought of cocktails,” murmured Dinny, “but perhaps they don’t make them here.”

“A sherry wouldn’t be amiss. I’ll get ’em.” The woman rose and disappeared into the bar.

Dinny took the chance to powder her nose. She also dived her hand down to the pocket in her ‘boned body’ where the spoils of South Molton Street were stored, and extracted a five-pound note. She was feeling a sort of sad excitement.

The woman came back with two glasses. “I told ’em to charge it to our bill. The liquor’s good here.”