There is a tide

by J. C. Snaith

When the coffee appeared, at the end of the meal, Lady Violet drank hers quickly. Then quite unexpectedly she rose. She would have to fly. There was a musical party she had promised to attend. A stupid affair, but it was the call of duty.

Mame and Elmer were pressing in their entreaties for their amusing friend to remain, but she was not to be seduced from the true path. Besides, as she laughingly said, it was a perfect night of stars. And this being a sufficiently rare occurrence for London, she hoped that Elmer—if she might use his Christian name?—would walk with Mame through Trafalgar Square, along Pall Mall, up the Haymarket, across the Circus and down the full length of Piccadilly. She ventured to prescribe that route, because a little bird had whispered that if Elmer duly followed it he might look for a very pleasant surprise, for which Mame was alone responsible.

This was all so enigmatic that Elmer might have been tempted to disbelieve Lady Violet. But he knew she was no trifler. Emphatically she was one of the people who did not make promises unless they were able to deliver the goods.

“We’ll go along and try it, anyway,” conceded Elmer the polite. And being something of an altruist into the bargain: “But you’ll come with us, won’t you? We can’t lose you!”

Lady Violet’s refusal was amusingly definite. She was late already; she must fly. Besides, there was an even more cogent reason. That, however, she was careful not to disclose to Elmer P. Dobree. As that homme du monde moved a bit ahead of her to the restaurant door to see her into her cloak and her taxi, she bent to Mame’s ear and whispered urgently, “My child, if you don’t put one over on him to-night I’ll never speak to you again.”

LV

A BLITHE twenty minutes or so after Lady Violet had “flown,” Elmer and Mame decided to get a move on. For one thing Elmer’s curiosity had been tremendously piqued by the surprise that had been predicted. What could it be? Lady Violet, he supposed, was just pulling his leg. Yet he didn’t think so really; he knew she was not the kind of person to break a solemn promise. Still there was nothing to deduce from the attitude of Mame. The aider and abettor of Lady Violet was giving nothing away. The stars were very bright, the air for the time of year quite balmy, the pavements of London were dry as a bone. All the conditions, therefore, were favourable for outdoor exercise. Indeed, as Elmer said, or it may have been Mame who said it, the evening was just ideal for the purpose.

Mame put on her lovely new cloak trimmed with fur, or at least Elmer put it on for her. Then Elmer got into his overcoat and clapped on his smart gibus, which gave him such a look of distinction, that a loafer cadging for pence just beyond the courtyard of the hotel promptly addressed him as Captain.

The mutt got the coppers all right. It was not so much that Elmer was susceptible to that kind of flattery, as that just now he was not in a mood to refuse anything to anybody. He was moving about this evening in an enchanted world.

At every step they took in it now, the world through which they were moving seemed to grow more entrancing. For one thing there was a powerful magic in the stars. The strip of moon, too, as Mame remarked, seemed to be trying to put one over on them. She made this observation while they were in the act of steering each other across the perilous vortex from Northumberland Avenue to Morley’s Hotel, and nearly barging into more than one of their compatriots in the process.