"On a motor-'bus," she explained.
"Motor-'bus? Not a bit. Fairy coach!" declared her highly imaginative swain.
"Fairy coaches don't as a rule carry eighteen inside and twenty-two outside, dear," replied the matter-of-fact Miss Welwyn.
"No, you are right," admitted Dicky. "Fairy coaches are invariably two-seaters. This one is n't a bad substitute, though--what?"
He lolled luxuriously, and turned to survey the profile beside him. Tilly was wearing a saxe-blue suède hat, secured to her head by a filmy motor-veil--both the property of the open-handed Mrs. Carmyle, who was sitting in front driving the car under the complacent contemplation of her husband. The fur rug which Tilly shared with Dicky enveloped her to the chin: her cheeks glowed; her lips were parted in a smile of utter content; and her eyes were closed. Dicky tried to count the long lashes that swept her cheek. She was his! His--to keep, to cherish, to protect, to pamper, to spoil! Something very tremendous stirred within him--something that had never found a place in that receptive and elastic organ, his heart, before. All the dormant tenderness and chivalry of his nature seemed to heap itself up into a mighty tidal wave, topple over, and inundate his very soul. Foolish tears came into his eyes. Very reverently he reached for Tilly's hand under the rug. She surrendered it, smiling lazily, without raising her lashes. Dicky wondered what she was thinking about.
Tilly, on her part, was trying to summon up courage to tell him.
By this time the car had cleared the village of Shotley Beauchamp, filled with parties of worshippers hastening in what Connie described as "rival directions," and was spinning along the open road bound for the Surrey hills. It was a crisp and sunny morning. There was a touch of spring in the air, quickening the pulse.
"I wonder," began Dicky, whose conversation at this period, like that of all healthy young men in a similar condition, wandered round in a clearly defined and most constricted circle, "if I had not had that row with the umbrella-merchant on the top of the Piccadilly 'bus, whether you and I would ever--"
Bang!
Mr. Carmyle said something distressingly audible. Mrs. Carmyle applied the brakes; and the car, bumping uncomfortably, came to a standstill at the side of the road, under the lee of a pine wood.