“It’s a real pleasure to have seen you and him together—and so happy.”
“Thanks,” said Elsie sarcastically. “We’re as happy as the day is long, of course.”
“So you ought to be,” said Aunt Ada very sharply.
They exchanged good-byes outside the restaurant, and Elsie and her husband went by Tube to their own station.
The long suburban road was almost deserted when they came out into it.
“We’ll go by the Grove, of course,” said Elsie, indicating the narrow alleyway that eventually merged into their own street, with a high blank wall upon one side of it and the backs of a rather sordid row of houses upon the other.
A few leafless plane-trees showed above the top of the wall, and an occasional tall lamp slightly relieved the gloom of the long, paved passage-way.
Their footsteps on the stones were clearly audible in the unusual stillness that belonged both to the deserted locality and to the small hours of the morning.
“Who’s that?” said Horace so suddenly that Elsie jumped.
Footsteps were hurrying behind them, and they both turned. With a strange sense of foreknowledge, Elsie saw Leslie Morrison.