“When?” I asked.
“On the day that you know my name, when the earthly love that you feel for me is changed to the new love of which it is the shadow, when we come back together, you and I, out of the darkness into the light.”
“Where is the light?”
“Look upwards. There are no more stars, and above all seems dark. And the darkness flows on like a river, on and on. But the river will run dry at the last, the darkness will have passed at the last, and then we shall enter into the light.”
“And now,” said the voice of the unconscionable cab-horse behind us, “I will ask you to join with me in singing the last hymn on the paper.”
“What on earth,” I exclaimed testily, “is the point of making that perfectly idiotic remark?”
“Mere absent-mindedness,” the brute answered. “I thought from the general style of the conversation that I was at some missionary meeting. That’s all.”
“At any rate,” I said, “you need not interrupt a—a lady.”
“Lady! S’help me! That high-toned, female grocer’s assistant, a lady!” The beast positively shrieked with laughter. “Get into the cab, you little fool, and let’s get home. There’s no place like home.”
I sprang at the cab, seized the whip, and determined to take my revenge. But I never got it. The agile beast waltzed round and round with amazing rapidity in the middle of the street. I struck out wildly; but though I occasionally hit the cab, I never succeeded in hitting the horse. All this time the cabman remained motionless. Suddenly the brute stopped, and backed the cab right into me. I fell down on the pavement by the low wall. I picked myself up and gazed around.