“Excuse me,” he said to Serge, and took Annette’s trunk from him. Annette laid her hand in his arm and they walked off up the street in the direction of a cab-rank in the main Burdley Road.
Francis joined Serge and they followed close behind.
“And to think,” said Francis, “that Annette should be the first to go, and that she should go like this! . . . What do you, make of it, Serge?”
“It would be funny,” replied Serge, “if it were not so pathetic.”
“Just . . . just what I have been feeling. Look at them! They look as if they were going off to an evening’s merry-making.”
“They have forgotten us already.”
That was true. The lovers walked fast, hailed a cab on the rank, and had climbed in to it and were off by the time Serge and Francis came up with them. Serge bawled to the driver, the cab stopped, and Annette, conscience-stricken, jumped down and came quickly to her father. Francis drew a ring from his finger, a gold ring set with an emerald, and said:
“I couldn’t let you go without my present.”
“I’m not going far, father.”