The curate did not display much eagerness to come. "Is it safe?" he asked; "you've sent the man away."
"Because I want to talk privately with you. Safe!" she echoed in a tone of impatient scorn; "I'd drive a car against Edge himself."
"Oh, very well," said Kaimes, carelessly, and placed himself beside her. He was utterly devoid of fear, and if there was to be a smash, he was not unprepared to enter the next world. Lady Jim gave the wheel a twirl, and the car glided through the square under the grey muffling of the fog. Reckless as she was, Lady Jim had to steer carefully and move slowly, lest she should run into something, for the fog was a trifle thicker than it had been during the afternoon. All the same, her keen eyes could see clearly enough, and she was not at all afraid. Cool under all circumstances, Lady Jim would have hummed a ditty on the streaming bridge of a plunging, bucking tramp-steamer, going down in the bitter North Atlantic weather. Lionel marvelled at her composure, and wondered if even her dear intellect could grasp the meaning of death and its hereafter. But Lady Jim was thinking of this world rather than of the next, and talked of her troubles while steering the car down Piccadilly.
"Jim and I are in a hole about money," she announced abruptly, for there was no need to be diplomatic with this simpleton.
"That is not unusual," murmured Lionel.
She laughed and nodded. "No. We have both a wonderful capacity for getting through cash. Now we've got down to what an American girl called the bed-rock, and we want help."
"I never knew you when you did not want help," said the curate, wondering what was best to say; "and in some ways, your want is very dire."
"Don't preach, Lionel. Money is better than sermons."
"To such as you and Jim, no doubt. But setting aside the spiritual need, a sermon on your extravagance would do you good."
"I'm afraid not," rejoined Lady Jim, putting on the brake for the St. James's Street incline; "it would only go in at one ear and out of the other. When I want sermons I'll come and hear you preach in that dirty little church of yours. Meantime, you must help to get Jim and me out of this scrape."