“Why, find a ’bus, of course!” Sylvia said. “And get as far from Hampstead as possible.”
“But it’s after twelve o’clock,” Arthur objected. “There won’t be any ’buses now. I don’t know what we’re going to do. We can’t look for rooms at this time of night.”
“We must just walk as far as we can away from Hampstead,” said Sylvia, cheerfully.
“And carry our luggage? Supposing a policeman asks us where we’re going?”
“Oh, bother policemen! Come along. You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself nearly as much as I am. I care for nobody. I’m off with the raggle-taggle gipsies—oh,” she lightly sang.
Maria mewed at the sound of his mistress’s voice.
“You’re as bad as Maria,” she went on, reproachfully. “Look how nice the lamp-posts look. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, I can see. Let’s bet how many lamp-posts we pass before we’re safe in our own house.”
They set out for London by the road along the Heath. At first trees overhung the path, and they passed pool after pool of checkered lamplight that quivered in the wet road. Followed a space of open country where they heard the last whispers of a slight and desultory wind. Soon they were inclosed by mute and unillumined houses on either side, until they found themselves on the top of Haverstock Hill, faced by the tawny glow of the London sky, and stretching before them a double row of lamp-posts innumerable and pale that converged to a dim point in the heart of the city below.
“I think I’m rather frightened,” Sylvia said. “Or perhaps I’m a little tired.”
“Shall we go back?” Arthur suggested.