'I didn't know her name was Vida; how did you?' said Jean.
Stonor bent his head silently over the book. Perhaps he hadn't heard. That deafening old gong was sounding for luncheon.
CHAPTER XVI
The last of the Trafalgar Square meetings was half over when the great chocolate-coloured motor, containing three persons besides the chauffeur, slowed up on the west side of the square. Neither of the two ladies in their all-enveloping veils was easily recognizable, still less the be-goggled countenance of the Hon. Geoffrey Stonor. When he took off his motor glasses, he did not turn down his dust collar. He even pulled farther over his eyes the peak of his linen cap.
By coming at all on this expedition, he had given Jean a signal proof of his desire to please her—but it was plain that he had no mind to see in the papers that he had been assisting at such a spectacle. While he gave instructions as to where the car should wait, Jean was staring at the vast crowd massed on the north side of the column. It extended back among the fountains, and even escaped on each side beyond the vigilance of the guardian lions. There were scores listening there who could not see the speakers even as well as could the occupants of the car. In front of the little row of women on the plinth a gaunt figure in brown serge was waving her arms. What she was saying was blurred in the general uproar.
'Oh, that's one!' Jean called out excitedly. 'Oh, let's hurry.'
But even after they left the car and reached the crowd, to hurry was a thing no man could do. For some minutes the motor-party had only occasional glimpses of the speakers, and heard little more than fragments.
'Who is that, Geoffrey?'