‘There is a good match at the Oval, the Australians against Surrey. Would you care to see that?’
‘Yes, dear, if you would.’
‘And there are matinées at all the theatres.’
‘You would rather be in the open air.’
‘All I want is that you should enjoy yourself.’
‘Never fear. I shall do that.’
‘Well, then, first of all I vote that we go and have some lunch.’
They started across the station yard, and passed the beautiful old stone cross. Among the hansoms and the four-wheelers, the hurrying travellers, and the lounging cabmen, there rose that lovely reconstruction of mediævalism, the pious memorial of a great Plantagenet king to his beloved wife.
‘Six hundred years ago,’ said Frank, as they paused and looked up, ‘that old stone cross was completed, with heralds and armoured knights around it to honour her whose memory was honoured by the king. Now the corduroyed porters stand where the knights stood, and the engines whistle where the heralds trumpeted, but the old cross is the same as ever in the same old place. It is a little thing of that sort which makes one realise the unbroken history of our country.’
Maude insisted upon hearing about Queen Eleanor, and Frank imparted the little that he knew as they walked out into the crowded Strand.