Ann felt cold with shame.
Bob had been so fearful, and her love had cast out his fear. He had never doubted her love, but only whether that love could survive the strain. And she had fought to convince him, till he had been convinced. He believed heart and soul in its ability . . . heart and soul. . . . And now—Bob had been right. Her dauntless love had not endured eight hours—not eight hours. . . .
Of course she hadn’t appreciated. There had been a misunderstanding. She had assumed——
The excuses leaked like sieves. The truth poured out of them.
It was she—she only that was to blame. She hadn’t thought of all this. Her father had. So had her aunt. So even had Bob—poor, weak, unsophisticated Bob. With tears in his eyes, he had begged her not to smash his life; and she had smiled and kissed him and smashed it and smashed hers too.
The Sting of Death sank to a pin-prick, the Victory of the Grave to an unfinished game—beside the horror of the fare which Life was serving.
It seemed, indeed, that she was to be spared nothing.
Bob returned beaming. His wooing of the cabman had prospered, for, as luck would have it, the latter was in a holiday humour. He had been upon the point of returning to his stable, and ‘Pier View’ was on his way. He would drive them for nothing. He was, as Bob put it, ‘a proper sport.’ It soon appeared that he was a wag also.
In these circumstances it was most natural that his consent to oblige a pal should automatically promote him to the standing of a familiar. He celebrated his elevation heartily by a series of jocular allusions to nuptial bliss and intimate reminiscences of his own union, by tying a posy to his whip and desiring lustily to be informed of the shortest way to the Abode of Love.
The bystanders roared.