That night, as on several previous nights, the King and Lechworthy went to their work directly after dinner, and Hilda and Pryce were left alone together. The air seemed hot and heavy, the smoke from the doctor’s cigarette hung in lifeless coils.
“Hilda,” said the doctor, “it ought to be pleasant down by the pool to-night. Shall we go there?”
“Yes,” said Hilda. “I should like that.”
The sky was powdered with stars. The falling water made an unending melody, and here by the pool the air seemed cooler and fresher.
Hilda, lying at full length on the mat that had been spread for her, spoke drowsily.
“To-night,” she said, “nothing that happened before is real or matters a bit. I’ve always been here, lying by the pool and listening to the water—here at the world’s end, out of all the trouble. Is there really a place called London?”
“Wonder what’s going on there just now?” said Pryce. “Dawn perhaps. Did you often see the dawn in London, Hilda?”
“Yes, driving back from dances, with the violin music still swinging in my head, tired out and feeling as if I should never sleep again. The dawn seems cruel somehow then. But you know.”
“It’s long since I was there, but I remember a dawn down by the river. Spots of light were dotted across it where the bridges come. Then the sky turned pale, without a touch of colour, and the lights on the bridges went out. A mass of black in the Embankment gardens began to sort itself out into shrubs and plants. About twenty minutes later you could see the blue of the gardener’s lobelias. I hate lobelias.”
“So do I,” echoed Hilda. “So do I.”