“Out in the middle of the ice-cold Serpentine. He’s only a speck now, like our world in space. Now I can’t see him.”
“I can.”
“You’re longer-sighted than I am. But, Dion, I’m seeing a longish way to-night, farther than I’ve seen before. Love’s a great business, the greatest business in life. Ambition, and greed, and vanity, and altruism, and even fanaticism, must give place when it’s on hand, when it harnesses its winged horses to a man’s car and swings him away to the stars.”
“Ask her. I think she’ll have you.”
A star fell through the frosty clear sky. Dion remembered the falling star above Drouva. This time he was swift with a wish, but it was not a wish for his friend.
They reached Hyde Park Corner just before midnight and parted there. Dion hailed a hansom, but Daventry declared with determination that he was going to walk all the way home to Phillimore Gardens.
“To get up my case, to arrange things mentally,” he explained. “Big brains always work best at night. All the great lawyers toil when the stars are out. Why should I be an exception? I dedicate myself to Cynthia Clarke. She will have my undivided attention and all my deepest solicitude.”
“I know why.”
“No, no.”
He put one hand on the apron which Dion had already closed.