They had come to the edge of the Serpentine, on which there lay an ethereal film of baby ice almost like frosted gauze. The leafless trees, with their decoration of filigree, suggested the North and its peculiar romance—nature trailing away into the mighty white solitudes where the Pole star reigns over fields of ice.
“Hyde Park is bringing me illusions to-night,” said Daventry. “That water might be the Vistula. If I heard a wolf howling over there near the ranger’s lodge, I shouldn’t be surprised.”
A lifeguardsman, in a red cloak, and a woman drifted away over the frost among the trees.
“I love Mrs. Clarke as a client, but perhaps I love her even more because, through her, I hope to get hold of something I’ve—I’ve let drop,” continued Daventry.
“What’s that?”
Daventry put his arm through Dion’s.
“I don’t know whether I can name it even to you; but it’s something a man of great intelligence, such as myself, should always keep in his fist.”
He paused.
“The clergy are apt to call it self-respect,” he at length added, in a dry voice.
Dion pressed his arm.