"My dear Julien," she said, "I've told you before that you never knew me. If you had appreciated me as I deserved, when you came that cropper you wouldn't have called on me to say good-bye. You'd have left that red-headed friend of yours at home and told me that the empty place in the taxicab was mine."
He laughed and then suddenly became grave.
"Supposing I had?" he whispered.
She looked at him, startled. In that moment he seemed to see a new thing in her face, a new and marvelous softness. It passed like a flash—so swiftly that it left him wondering whether it was not indeed a trick of his imagination.
"Absurd!" she murmured. "Tell me, what is there we can do now? Must I go home?"
"On the contrary," he declared, "you are engaged to me for the evening.
Only I must call at my rooms. Do you mind?"
"I mind nothing," she assured him. "Let us take a carriage and drive about the streets. Julien, what a yellow moon!"
They clambered into a little voiture, and with a hoarse shout and a crack of the whip from the cocher, they started off. Lady Anne leaned back with an exclamation of content.
"If only it weren't so theatrical!" she sighed. "The streets seem so clean and the buildings so white and the sky so blue and the people so gay. Yet I suppose the bitterness of life is here as in the other places. Why do you want to call at your rooms, Julien?"
"There is just a chance," he explained, "that there may be a telegram from Kendricks. I want to know what they think of my article."