At Charing Cross it was raining, and the noise was deafening. Alex had meant to send Barbara a telegram from Folkestone, but had not known where to find the telegraph office, and she now realized with a pang of dismay that her sister would not be expecting her.
"How stupid I am, and how badly I manage things," she thought. "I hope she won't be out."
The number of taxis at the station bewildered Alex, who had only seen one or two crawling about the streets in Rome, and had heard of them, besides, as ruinously expensive. She found a four-wheeled cab and put her bag on the floor. The man did not get down from his box to open the door for her, as she expected. He leant down and asked hoarsely.
"Where d'you want to go, Miss?"
"Downshire Hill," said Alex. "No. 101."
"Downshire 'Ill? Where's that?"
"I don't know," said Alex, frightened. She wondered if the man was drunk, and prepared to pull her bag out of the cab again.
"'Alf a minute."
He called out something unintelligible to another driver, and received an answer.
"Downshire 'Ill's N.W.," he then informed her. "Out 'Ampstead w'y."