G.J. thought of Robin affixed to the telephone, and some scarlet-shouldered officer at the War Office quitting duty for the telephone, in order to keep the capricious girl informed of military movements simply because she had taken the trouble to be her father's daughter, and in so doing had acquired the right to treat the imperial machine as one of her nursery toys. And he became unreasonably annoyed.
"I suppose you were cowering in your Club during the first Act?" she said, with vivacity.
"Yes," G.J. briefly answered. Once more he was aware of a strong instinctive disinclination to relate what had happened to him. He was too proud to explain, and perhaps too tired.
"You ought to have been up here. They dropped two bombs close to the National Gallery; pity they couldn't have destroyed a Landseer or two while they were so near! There were either seven or eight killed and eighteen wounded, so far as is known. But there were probably more. There was quite a fire, too, but that was soon got under. We saw it all except the explosion of the bombs. We weren't looking in the right place—no luck! However, we saw the Zepp. What a shame the moon's disappeared again! Listen! Listen!... Can't you hear the engines?"
G.J. shrugged his shoulders. Nothing could be heard above the faint hum of Piccadilly. The wind seemed to have diminished to a chill, fitful zephyr.
Concepcion had sat down on a coping.
"Look!" she exclaimed in a startled whisper, and sprang erect.
To the south, down among the trees, a red light flashed and was gone. The faint, irregular hum of Piccadilly persisted for a couple of seconds, and then was drowned in the loud report, which seemed to linger and wander in the great open spaces. G.J.'s flesh crept. He comprehended the mad ecstasy of Queen, and because he comprehended it his anger against her increased.
"Can you see the Zepp?" murmured Queen, as it were ferociously. "It must be within range, or they wouldn't have fired. Look along the lines of the searchlights. One of them, at any rate, must have got on to it. We saw it before. Can't you see it? I can hear the engines, I think."