“Take me with you, please,” she begged.
He shook his head.
“Not to be done!”
“Don't shake your head like that,” she enjoined, with a little grimace. “People will think I am trying to borrow money from you and that you are refusing me! Just take me with you some of the way. I shall scream if I go back into that dancing-room again.”
Sir Timothy glanced at the clock.
“If there is any amusement to you in a rather dull drive eastwards—”
She was on her feet with the soft, graceful speed which had made her so much admired before her present listlessness had set in.
“I'll get my cloak,” she said.
They drove along the Embankment, citywards. The heat of the city seemed to rise from the pavements. The wall of the Embankment was lined with people, leaning over to catch the languid breeze that crept up with the tide. They crossed the river and threaded their way through a nightmare of squalid streets, where half-dressed men and women hung from the top windows and were even to be seen upon the roof, struggling for air. The car at last pulled up at the corner of a long street.
“I am going down here,” Sir Timothy announced. “I shall be gone perhaps an hour. The neighbourhood is not a fit one for you to be left alone in. I shall have time to send you home. The car will be back here for me by the time I require it.”