A MAN'S HAND
Whenever Dodo was in London for a Sunday, as was the case on the day preceding her ball, she always gave up the hours until teatime, inclusive, to David's uninterrupted society. They breakfasted together at half-past nine, and immediately afterwards, usually before Jack had put in an appearance at all, set off on the top of a bus, if the weather made that delightful form of progress possible, to attend service in the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. A mere sprinkle of rain did not matter, because then they crouched underneath an umbrella, and played at being early Christians in a small cave, while if the inclemency was too severe for any reasonable Christian to remain in a small cave, they dashed to the tube-station at Down Street, and after traversing an extremely circuitous route, like early Christians in an enormous rabbit-burrow, emerged at Post Office Station, where another dash took them into shelter. It was in fact only on the most tempestuous Sundays of all that they were reduced to the degradation of ordering the motor, and going there in dull dignity.
They did not always wait for the sermon; David had the option of going away or remaining, for Dodo considered that a tired boy listening or not listening to a sermon was likely to get a gloomier view of religious practices than if he had been allowed to go away when he had had enough and play early Christians in a cave again. But he had to decide whether they should remain or go away while the preacher was being conducted to the pulpit, and it was stipulated that if he decided to stop he must abide by his choice and not retire in the middle of the sermon, since it was not polite to interrupt people when they were talking to you.
To-day David had made a most unfortunate choice. The preacher was entertaining for a few minutes merely because he had a high fluty voice that echoed like a siren in the dome, but he said nothing of the smallest interest, and had no idea whatever when to stop. Between his sentences he made long pauses, and Dodo had got briskly to her feet during one of these, thinking that the discourse was now over. So she had to sit down again, and David, trying to swallow his desire to laugh, had hiccupped loudly, which made three people in the row immediately in front of them, turn round all together as if worked by one lever and look fixedly at them, which was embarrassing.
One of them happened to be Lord Cookham, and it seemed likely that Dodo would hiccup next. Then from a front chair close to the choir, Edith Arbuthnot got up, curtsied low in the direction of the altar before turning her back on it, and began walking towards them down the gangway.
"Why did she curtsey, mummy? Was Prince Albert there?" asked David in a whisper.
"Yes," said Dodo, not feeling capable of explaining it all just then.
One of Edith's boots creaked exactly an octave below the pitch of the preacher's fluty voice. This sounded ever louder and more cheerfully as she got nearer, and she stopped when she came opposite to them.
"Stop for the second service, Dodo," she said. "They're going to sing my mass. I can't. I'm playing golf at Richmond. Good-bye."
Her creaking boot sounded in gradual diminuendo as she tramped away down the nave.