“Oh! I don’t know,” said Carey, with a shrug. “I meant to come home before, of course,” he went on after a moment, “and then, when the poor old man died I felt I never wanted to see the place again. So I moved on, kept moving, went to the other end of nowhere. I’ve seen most things now, that’s why I’m back again.”
“Well! it’s time you were back, steadily turning your copy to account. Your book’s been boomed a bit, you’ve caught on, I think. Perhaps after the solitude of the desert you won’t object to find pretty women bowing the knee before you to-night? Mrs. Edgbaston Smith’s excitement when I offered to bring you this evening was a sight for the gods!”
“What the devil does one do when they bow the knee? I’ve been out of the civilized world too long, it seems— Ah! St. James’s Hall!” Carey leaned forward a moment, and watched the crowd on the pavement before the lighted entrance. “I wonder if there’s a Wagner concert on!” he said, leaning back with a smile.
There was a moment’s pause.
“The last time I passed that place,” he remarked, with a backward nod in the direction of the Hall, “I was in a hansom with the most beautiful girl I ever saw in my life. It seems like yesterday.”
“Sounds as though you were hard hit, old man! Her image in your heart for five long years. She ought to have ‘loved another,’ to make the thing complete. Did she?”
“Not to my knowledge, and I’d hardly time to be hard hit. I met her only once before that drive, and I sailed next day. We drove from here to Hackney, to be sure, which is like saying till the crack of doom.”
“Oh! I understand. Not the blushing ingénue. I don’t know why, but I imagined she was.”
“Not the blushing sort, certainly, but nevertheless you don’t understand. It was not the ordinary episode by any means. She was clever, very clever. I wonder what has become of her. If she’s emerged—”
“Emerged? A woman emerges in so many ways. She may be married, or on the County Council.”