"Thank you ..."
The four-wheeler swung out of Oxford Street into Charing Cross Road. Kirkwood noted the fact with a feeling of some relief that their ride was to be so short; like many of his fellow-sufferers from "the artistic temperament," he was acutely disconcerted by spoken words of praise and gratitude; Miss Calendar, unintentionally enough, had succeeded only in rendering him self-conscious and ill at ease.
Nor had she fully relieved her mind, nor voiced all that perturbed her. "There's one thing more," she said presently: "my father. I—I hope you will think charitably of him."
"Indeed, I've no reason or right to think otherwise."
"I was afraid—afraid his actions might have seemed peculiar, to-night ..."
"There are lots of things I don't understand, Miss Calendar. Some day, perhaps, it will all clear up,—this trouble of yours. At least, one supposes it is trouble, of some sort. And then you will tell me the whole story.... Won't you?" Kirkwood insisted.
"I'm afraid not," she said, with a smile of shadowed sadness. "We are to say good night in a moment or two, and—it will be good-by as well. It's unlikely that we shall ever meet again."
"I refuse positively to take such a gloomy view of the case!"
She shook her head, laughing with him, but with shy regret. "It's so, none the less. We are leaving London this very night, my father and I—leaving England, for that matter."
"Leaving England?" he echoed. "You're not by any chance bound for America, are you?"