“Oh, don't talk about signs, Hephzy,” I pleaded, wearily. “You'll begin to dream again, I suppose, pretty soon.”
“No, I won't. I think you and I have stopped dreamin', Hosy. Maybe we're just wakin' up, same as I told you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Mean? Oh, I guess I didn't mean anything. Good-by, old France! You're a lovely country and a lively one, but I sha'n't cry at sayin' good-by to you this time. And there's England dead ahead. Won't it seem good to be where they talk instead of jabber! I sha'n't have to navigate by the 'one-two-three' chart over there.”
Dover, a flying trip through the customs, the train again, an English dinner in an English restaurant car—not a “wagon bed,” as Hephzy said, exultantly—and then London.
We took a cab to the hotel, not Bancroft's this time, but a modern downtown hostelry where there were at least as many Americans as English. In our rooms I would have cross-questioned Hephzy, but she would not be questioned, declaring that she was tired and sleepy. I was tired, also, but not sleepy. I was almost as excited as she seemed to be by this time. I was sure she had learned something that morning in Paris, something which pleased her greatly. What that something might be I could not imagine; but I believed she had learned it from Herbert Bayliss.
And the next morning, after breakfast, she announced that she had arranged for a cab and we must start for the station at once. I said nothing then, but when the cab pulled up before a railway station, a station which was not our accustomed one but another, I said a great deal.
“What in the world, Hephzy!” I exclaimed. “We can't go to Mayberry from here.”
“Hush, hush, Hosy. Wait a minute—wait till I've paid the driver. Yes, I'm doin' it myself. I'm skipper on this cruise. You're an invalid, didn't you know it. Invalids have to obey orders.”
The cabman paid, she took my arm and led me into the station.