“The emerald was wise. There’s a galanterie in jewels unknown to men, I see that. So you won’t come for a drive with me? Our last?”
“I never said that, Iris!”
“Ah, I have frightened him! Well, I will come round for you in five minutes. How are you dressed? In black and white? Maybe I would have preferred you in something less formal, in something more——”
“Enough of pour le sport, Iris! Oh, enough, enough!”
II
And so we were again, again and for the last time, in that swift motor-car, wrapped in the gentle silences of the night. The oppression of the heat was gone since the rains of yesterday, but even yet London could not quite rouse itself from the stupor of the past tropical week. And to-night the flight of the stork did not torment the hosts of the midgets, “for,” said Iris from the shadow of her green hat, “there is no hurry, no hurry at all.”
A clock in the High Street of Kensington was at a little after half-past nine o’clock. The wide sweep of road towards Olympia was quiet with the gentle traffic of no-man’s-hour, for such is a little after half-past nine o’clock. I said: “I do wish you would tell me what all this is about.”
“It begins a long time ago, it is a long story. Having to do with the loves of babes, the wisdom of sucklings, and the sins of the fathers. And the sins of the fathers. But I will tell you more when we come to Harrod’s.”
“But we passed Harrod’s long ago!”
“There is another. You will see. Patience.” Through Hammersmith and Chiswick, by Ranelagh and Roehampton, we sped into the veiled countryside. The glow of London was a yellow arch in the night behind. We passed the last omnibus on its last journey to a far-flung corner of the town.