CHAPTER 34
She was gone, and Warburton stood biting his lips. Had he shaken hands with her? Had he said good-night? He could not be sure. Nothing was present to him but a sense of gawkish confusion, following on a wild impulse which both ashamed and alarmed him, he stood in a bumpkin attitude, biting his lips.
A hansom came crawling by, and the driver called his attention—"Keb, sir?" At once he stepped forward, sprang on to the footboard, and—stood there looking foolish.
"Where to, sir?"
"That's just what I can't tell you," he answered with a laugh. "I want to go to somebody's house, but don't know the address."
"Could you find it in the Directory, sir? They've got one at the corner."
"Good idea."
The cab keeping alongside with him, he walked to the public-house, and there, midway in whisky-and-soda, looked up in the great red volume the name of Strangwyn. There it was,—a house in Kensington Gore. He jumped into the hansom, and, as he was driven down Park Lane, he felt that he had enjoyed nothing so much for a long time; it was the child's delight in "having a ride"; the air blew deliciously on his cheeks, and the trotting clap of the horse's hoofs, the jingle of the bells, aided his exhilaration. And when the driver pulled up, it was with an extraordinary gaiety that Will paid him and shouted good-night.
He approached the door of Mr. Strangwyn's dwelling. Some one was at that moment turning away from it, and, as they glanced at each other, a cry of recognition broke from both.
"Coming to make inquiry?" asked Sherwood. "I've just been doing the same thing."