“Don’t laugh at me, Harry,” said the artist, sadly. “It is like saying good-bye. After to-morrow I shall settle down.”
“I don’t laugh at you, old fellow,” said Artingale, taking the other’s arm. “It’s all right. I might just as well ask you not to laugh at me. Have a cigar?”
Magnus nodded, the case was produced, and they both lit up, and instead of going straight back east, continued to promenade up and down, and then right round the great block of houses over and over again, for quite an hour, saying very little, but seeming as it were attracted to the place, till coming to the front, for what Artingale vowed should be the last time, he saw a couple of figures apparently leave one of the doors, and go right on towards the other end.
“Somebody late,” he said, feeling a kind of interest in the couple that he could not account for.
“Yes,” said Magnus, quickly, “very late. Come along.”
Artingale involuntarily quickened his steps, and they followed the two figures without a word, seeing them sometimes more, sometimes less, distinctly, according to the position they occupied relative to the lamps.
Why they took so much interest in them was more than they could have explained, for a couple of figures going late at night along a London street is no such very great novelty; but still, they quickened their steps, feeling ready at the slightest hint to have increased the pace to a run.
There seemed no sufficient reason though for such a step, and they continued to walk on fast, till they came to the end of the row of houses; and turning sharply they were just in time to hear the jangling noise of the door of a four-wheeled cab slammed to, then what sounded like a faint wailing cry.
“There’s something wrong, I think,” said Artingale; but as he spoke the glass was dragged up, the horse started off at a rapid trot, the cab turned into the road by the Park railings, and was gone.
The two friends stood hesitating, and had they been alone, either would have run after the cab. But as they hesitated from a feeling that such a proceeding would have been absurd, the vehicle was driven rapidly away.