I took her umbrella, and with her hand still on my arm she led me down Lower Regent Street.
If we had anything important to say to one another, it was extraordinary how we delayed to say it. We reached the offices of the F.B.C. without having spoken, and turned along Pall Mall East and into Trafalgar Square still without a word. And when presently she did speak, at the top of Parliament Street, it was merely to tell me that my hat would be spoiled if I didn't take my share of the umbrella.
"Then you might at least turn your trousers up," she added, as I made no reply; and I stooped and did so. We resumed our walk, stopped at the Horse Guards, and made our way slowly towards the Mall.
"Are you warm?" I asked some minutes later.
"Quite," she replied; and the silence fell on us again.
At last, somewhere near the spot where the Artillery Memorial now is, she did speak. It was a curious question she put, her fingers working slightly on my sleeve as she did so. During the past minutes a sense—I hardly know how to describe it except as a sense of protection—had begun to grow on me, the odd thing being that it was not I who protected her, but she me. Perhaps the perfect calm with which she had claimed my arm had begun it; it certainly now informed the very curious question she suddenly put.
"Are you happy?" she asked.
You may imagine I was a little surprised. Quite apart from the nameless reassurance that thrilled in her tone, some queer gage of fidelity, though fidelity to what I could not make out, the question itself was a long way out of the ordinary. Was I happy! Ought I not, from any point of view she could possibly have, to be happy? Newly married—sure of myself—wearing clothes the luxury of which was only an anticipation—fresh from a conference with the great ones of the land (though to be sure she could hardly know all this)—what else should I be but happy? It looked as if for some reason or other she had supposed I would not be happy.... I spoke slowly.
"I wish you would tell me," I said, "what makes you ask that?"
She looked straight before her through the rain. "Why I ask that? It's just that that I wanted to ask you," she replied.