"One moment," he entreated, and masterfully signalled Marrier to
depart. After all he was paying the fellow three pounds a week.
She watched Marrier thread his way out. Already she had put on her
gloves.
"I must go," she repeated; her rich red lips then closed definitely.
"Have you a motor here?" Edward Henry asked.
"No."
"Then if I may I'll see you home."
"You may," she said, gazing full at him. Whereby he was somewhat
startled and put out of countenance.
V
"Are we friends?" he asked roguishly.
"I hope so," she said, with no diminution of her inscrutability.
They were in a taxi-cab, rolling along the Embankment towards the
Buckingham Palace Hotel, where she said she lived. He was happy. "Why
am I happy?" he thought. "_What_ is there in her that makes me happy?"
He did not know. But he knew that he had never been in a taxi-cab, or
anywhere else, with any woman half so elegant. Her elegance flattered
him enormously. Here he was, a provincial man of business, ruffling it
with the best of them!... And she was young in her worldly maturity.
Was she twenty-seven? She could not be more. She looked straight in
front of her, faintly smiling.... Yes, he was fully aware that he was
a married man. He had a distinct vision of the angelic Nellie, of the
three children, and of his mother. But it seemed to him that his own
case differed in some very subtle and yet effective manner from the
similar case of any other married man.
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