She got into the taxi-cab which was trembling with the power of the unemployed engines below it.
Tzim, tzim, tzim!
"Where shall we go, Gilbert?" she said, in a languid, uninterested voice.
He answered her in tones more cold and bloodless than her own. "I don't know, Rita, and I don't care. Ce que vous voulez, Mademoiselle des livres sans reproche!"
She turned her white face on him for a moment, almost savage with impotent petulance. Then she thrust her head out of the window and coiled round to the waiting driver.
"Go to Madame Tussaud's," she cried.
Tzim, tzim, bang-bang-bang, and then a long melancholy drone as the rows of houses slid backwards.
Gilbert turned on her. "Why did you say that?" he asked bitterly.
"What difference does it make?" she replied. "You didn't seem to care where we went for this last hour or two. I said the first thing that came into my mind. I suppose we can get lunch at Madame Tussaud's. I've never been there before. At any rate, I expect they can manage a sponge cake for us. I don't want anything more."
—"Yes, it's better for us both. It's a relief to me to think that the end has come. No, Rita dear, I don't want your hand. Let us make an end now—a diminuendo. It must be. Let it be. You've said it often yourself."