She could not ask him into the hotel, for they had no private sitting-room, so they said good-night to each other on the steps, with the taxi driver and the hotel porter watching them.
"To-morrow, then, at twelve," Dick had whispered. "But I am going to bring Mabel round before then; she gets up at about eleven, I think."
"To-morrow," Joan answered; her eyes would not let him go.
They stood staring at each other for a minute or two while the taxi-cab driver busied himself with the engine of his car, and the hall porter walked discreetly out of sight. Then Dick lifted his hand quickly to the salute and turned away.
"Drive like hell!" he said to the man. "Anywhere you please, but end me up at the Junior Conservative Club."
"Couldn't even kiss her," communed the man to himself. "That's the worst of being a toff. Can't kiss your girl if anyone else happens to be about."
Mabel had been very nice to Joan the next morning. She had buried all thoughts of jealousy and dismay, and when she looked into the other girl's eyes she forgave her everything and was only intensely sorry for her. Mrs. Grant had, very fortunately, as Dick said, stuck to her opinion and refused to have anything to do with the wedding. She had said good-bye to Dick on Friday morning with a wild outburst of tears, but he could not really feel that it meant very much to her.
"Mother will have forgotten in a week that she disapproved," Mabel told Joan. "You must very often come and spend the day with us."
Then they had driven down to the registry office, all four of them, and in a dark, rather dingy little room, a man with a curiously irritating voice had read aloud something to them from a book. Now they stood outside in the sunshine again, Mabel had kissed Joan, and Uncle John was blinking at her out of old eyes that showed a suspicion of tears in them. A big clock opposite told her the time was a quarter to one; in an hour and three-quarters Dick would be gone.
They had lunch in a little private room at a restaurant close to Victoria Station. Joan tried to eat, and tried to laugh and talk with the others, because Mabel had whispered to her on the way in: "You've got to help Dick through the next hour, it isn't going to be easy for him." And that had made Joan look at him with new eyes, and she could see that his face was very white, and that he seemed almost afraid to look at her.