So absorbed were they in their personal sensations of delight that it was not until they had arrived at the top and were moving on the level towards a “hotel with a view,” that the thoughts of luncheon coupled themselves somehow with the thought of names.
From a dangling bag the lady had produced a “steamer-list.”
“Don’t tell me yet,” she warned. “This is tremendously exciting. I am wondering if you could be, let me see—‘Abbott’—no,” she looked him over carefully—“you never would be an ‘Abbott.’ ‘Bacon,’ ‘Baker,’ ‘Boileau,’ ‘Crespi’—you might be that, especially when you spoke Italian to the driver. ‘Dr.’—you’re not a doctor, are you?” She showed some dismay.
“Guess on!” he played the game firmly.
“Well, there’s one thing you’re not,” she pointed to the “list.”
He leaned forward to read the name. The wagonette was stopping with a lurch at the spacious beflowered front of a hotel.
“‘Sir Richard Helvyn,’” she laughed.
“Why not?” he inquired mildly.
“Don’t scare me,” she laughed inquiringly. “Are you?”
The happy driver was waiting at the open door, whip in hand, smiling knowingly. A bride and groom, perhaps. The tip would betray them. Beside him a flunkey or two were ready to escort the pair into the hotel. A wizened beggar-woman raised silent-speaking eyes and extended a hand. The m’sieu opened a thin deep purse, obviously a lady’s—and extracted therefrom a gold coin and a smaller one of silver.