“Michael, you’re having an affair with some girl,” Stella said accusingly.
He shook his head.
“Swear?”
“By everything I believe in, I vow I’m not having an affair with any girl. I wish I were.”
His luggage was in the hall, and the dogcart was waiting. At King’s Cross he found a taxi, which was so difficult to do in those days that it made him hail the achievement as a good omen for the New Year.
Near South Kensington Station he caught sight of a poster advertising a carnival in the neighborhood: he thought it looked rather attractive with the bright colors glowing into the gray January day. Later on in the afternoon, when he went to his tobacconist’s in the King’s Road, he saw the poster again and read that to-night at Redcliffe Hall, Fulham Road, would take place a Grand Carnival and Masked Ball for the benefit of some orphanage connected with licensed victualing. Tickets were on sale in various public-houses of the neighborhood, at seven and sixpence for gentlemen and five shillings for ladies.
“Ought to be very good,” commented the tobacconist. “Well, we want a bit of brightening up nowadays down this way, and that’s a fact. Why, I can remember Cremorne Gardens. Tut-tut! Bless my soul. Yes, and the old World’s End. That’s going back into the seventies, that is. And it seems only yesterday.”
“I rather wish I’d got a ticket,” said Michael.
“Why not let me get you one, sir, and send it round to Cheyne Walk? I suppose you’d like one for a lady as well?”
“No, I’ll have two men’s tickets.”