They stole downstairs together. Metcalfe Brown was quiet; he did not open his door, look out, glance down the well of the stairs and see who was Ashley Mead's companion; he sat with his pipe in his mouth and his glass by his side, while Ora escaped in safety from the house.
The cabman had employed his leisure first in recollecting how his fare's face came to be familiar to him, secondly (since he had thus become interested in her), in examining the luggage labels on the three large boxes. There was a friendliness, and also a confidence, in his manner as he leant down from his box and said,
"Paddington, Miss Pinsent?"
"Paddington! No," said Ora. Ashley began to laugh. Ora laughed too, as she gave her address in Chelsea.
"Where I took you up, miss?" asked the cabman.
"Yes," said Ora, bright with amusement. "It really must seem rather funny to him," she said in an aside to Ashley, as she got in. The cabman himself was calling the affair "a rum start," as he whipped up his horse. To Ashley Mead it seemed very much the same.
There were, however, two people who were not very seriously surprised, Janet the respectable servant and Mr. Sidney Hazlewood the accomplished comedian. They received Ora, at the house in Chelsea and at the theatre respectively, with a very similar wrinkling of the forehead and a very similar sarcastic curving of the lips; to both of them the ways of genius were well known. "Mr. Fenning hasn't come after all," said Ora to Janet, while to Mr. Hazlewood she observed "I felt so much better that I've come after all." Janet said, "Indeed, ma'am." Mr. Hazlewood said, "All right," and sent word to the understudy that she was not wanted. On the whole her sudden change of plan seemed to Ora to cause less than its appropriate sensation—except to the cabman, whose demeanour had been quite satisfactory.
As Mr. Hazlewood was dressing for his part, it chanced that Babba Flint came in, intent on carrying through an arrangement rich, as were all Babba's, in prospective thousands. When the scheme had been discussed, Hazlewood mentioned Ora's wire of the morning and Ora's appearance in the evening. Babba nodded comprehendingly.
"Something to do with the husband perhaps," Hazlewood hazarded. "Not that it needs any particular explanation," he added, hiding his wrinkle with some paint.
"Husband, husband?" said Babba in a puzzle. "Oh, yes! By Jove, he was to come yesterday! Hasn't turned up, of course?"