CHAPTER XVI.
A CLOUD DISPELLED.
September was creeping on, and in London then the weather is often steady and pleasant, though in the mornings and evenings the first chills of the coming winter begin to be felt. The summer-parched and dust-laden foliage of the trees droops in Park and square, and the great gorse-bushes are all in golden bloom at Wimbledon, at Barnes Common, and other fern and heath-covered wastes.
The Row and other favourite promenades were now empty; Parliament was not sitting; and shooting and cub-hunting were in full force in the country.
Sooner or later one runs up against every one in this whirligig world of ours; thus Hammersley, still lingering aimlessly in London, coming one day from the Horse Guards, in crossing the east end of the Mall, found himself suddenly face to face with her of whom his thoughts were full—Finella Melfort!
Finella, in a smart sealskin jacket, with her muff slung by a silken cord round her slender neck, a most becoming hat, the veil of which was tied tightly and piquantly across her short upper lip.
'Finella!'
'Oh, Vivian!'
Their exclamations and joyful surprise were mutual, but 'the horns and hoofs of the green-eyed monster' were still obtruding amid the thoughts of Hammersley, though she frankly gave him both her plump little tightly gloved hands, which after a caressing pressure he speedily dropped, rather to the surprise of the charming proprietor thereof.
'Did you know I was in London?' she asked.