"Have we been so long?" I say, surprised. "It did not seem long! I suppose we dawdled. We began to talk—bah! it is growing chill! let us go home!"
Mr. Musgrave accompanies us to the entrance to the gardens.
"Good-night, Frank!" cries Sir Roger, as he follows me into the carriage.
As soon as I am in, I recollect that I have ungratefully forgotten to shake hands with my late escort.
"Good-night!" cry I, too, stretching out a compunctious hand, over Sir Roger and the carriage-side. "I am so sorry! I forgot all about you!"
"What hotel are you at?" asks Sir Roger, closing the carriage-door after him. "The Victoria? Oh, yes. We are at the Saxe. You must come and look us up when you have nothing better to do. Our rooms are number—what is it, Nancy? I never can recollect."
"No. 5," reply I. "But, indeed, it is not much use any one coming to call upon us, is it? For we are always out—morning, noon, and night."
With this parting encouragement on my part, we drive off, and leave our young friend trying, with only moderate success, to combine a gracious smile to Sir Roger, with a resentful scowl at me, under a lamp-post. We roll along quickly and easily, through the soft, cool, lamplit night.
"Well, how did you get on with him, Nancy?" asks Sir Roger. "Good-looking fellow, is not he?"
"Is he?" say I, carelessly. "Yes, I suppose he is, only that I never can admire dark men: I am so glad that all the boys are fair—I should have hated a black brother."