'You will take a cab, ma'am.'
'We must walk out to find one. I must go, though I should have to go on foot. Quick with bonnet and shawl; muffle up warmly. We have never been out so late: but does it matter? You're a brave soul, I'm sure, and you shall have your fee.'
'I don't care for money, ma'am.'
'When we get home you shall kiss me.'
Danvers clothed her mistress in furs and rich wrappings: Not paid for! was Diana's desperate thought, and a wrong one; but she had to seem the precipitated bankrupt and succeeded. She was near being it. The boiling of her secret carried her through the streets rapidly and unobservantly except of such small things as the glow of the lights on the pavements and the hushed cognizance of the houses, in silence to a thoroughfare where a willing cabman was met. The destination named, he nodded alertly he had driven gentlemen there at night from the House of Commons, he said.
'Our Parliament is now sitting, and you drive ladies,' Diana replied.
'I hope I know one, never mind the hour,' said he of the capes.
He was bidden to drive rapidly.
'Complexion a tulip: you do not often see a pale cabman,' she remarked to Danvers, who began laughing, as she always expected to do on an excursion with her mistress.
'Do you remember, ma'am, the cabman taking us to the coach, when you thought of going to the continent?'