"Russian salad—mayonnaise——"
"And something jolly in a bottle."
They laughed at one another. But after that the quiet returned again. Francey sat with her hands clasped behind her head and her chair tip-tilted against the wall. To Robert, who watched her from out of the shadow, she seemed to be drifting farther and farther away on a dark, quiet, flowing river.
It grew to dusk. The car had long since set out on its unknown journey. The narrow street with its pungent stable odour had sunk into one of those deep silences which lie scattered like secret pools along the route of London's endless processions. And presently Mr. Ricardo, who had not moved or spoken, but had sat hunched together like a captive bird, leant forward with his finger to his lips.
Christine had fallen asleep. Her hands lay folded upon her work and her face was still lifted to the black ridge of roof where the sun had vanished. There was enchantment about her sleep, as though in the very midst of them she had begun to live a new, mysterious life of her own. She had been the shadowy onlooker. She became the central figure among them.
Mr. Ricardo rose noiselessly. He looked at no one. He passed them like a ghost. They heard him creeping down the stairs and his hurrying, unequal footsteps on the empty street. Cosgrave and Connie Edwards nodded to one another and took hands and were gone. Francey, too, slipped to her feet. She gathered up her hat and coat, her silence effortless. She did not so much as glance at Robert, but at the head of the steep, ladder-like stairs he overtook her.
"Francey—listen——"
With one foot on the lower step, her back against the wall, she waited for him. It was too dark for them to see each other clearly. They were shadows to one another. They spoke in whispers, as though they were afraid of waking something more than the sleeper in the room behind them. He could not have told how he knew that her face was wet.
"I wanted to say—I don't know why I behaved like that. I'm not usually—nervy—uncontrolled. I don't think I've ever lost my temper before. I've had so little to do with people. Perhaps that's it. I've gone my own way alone——"
"And now that our ways have crossed," she began with a sad irony.