“You’re quite sure? I couldn’t persuade you?” she went on demurely, without looking at him.
“I can’t imagine you trying, Miss Merrill. But in any case I’m going on.”
“Good!” she cried, and her eyes lit up as she smiled at him. “You’re quite mad, but I sometimes like mad people. Then if, in spite of all I can say, you’re going on, what about a visit to Wembley tonight?”
“The very ticket!” Cheyne was swept by a wave of delight and enthusiasm. “It is jolly of you to suggest it. And you will come out to dinner and I may pay my bet!”
“As it’s a bet—all right. But you must go away now. I have some things to attend to. I’ll meet you when and where you say.”
“What about the Trocadero at seven? A leisurely dinner and then we for Wembley?”
“Right-o,” she laughed and vanished into the other room, while Cheyne, full of an eager excitement, went off to telephone orders to the restaurant as to the reservation of places.
Chapter X.
The New Firm Gets Busy
Cheyne and Joan Merrill took a Wembley Park train from Baker Street shortly before nine that evening, and a few minutes later alighted at the station whose name was afterwards to become a household word throughout the length and breadth of the British Empire. But at that time the Exhibition was not yet thought of, and the ground, which was later to hum with scores of thousands of visitors from all parts of the world, was now a dark and deserted plain.
When the young people left the station and began to look around them, they found that they had reached the actual fringe of the metropolis. Towards London were the last outlying rows of detached and semidetached houses of the standard suburban type. In the opposite direction, towards Harrow, was the darkness of open country. Judging by the number of lights that were visible, this country was extraordinarily sparsely inhabited.