‘While I live, I hope you will not doubt it.’
She paused, and, looking at him through her tears, held out both her hands.
‘It is so kind of you to say so,’ she cried. ‘Yes, you are good also; but no one in the world can be to me what Mr. White has been.’
‘It is right that you should be grateful,’ said Forster, gently, ‘and I think more highly of you for that holy feeling. But here we are at the Marble Arch. Must I call a cab?’
‘If you please, unless you will drive home with me, and see Mr. White. I know he is at home, for he is very busy on his new play.’
The offer was accepted as frankly as it was made, and Forster’s face shone with pleasure.
‘Shall it be a hansom or a four-wheeler?’ he said, smiling.
‘A hansom, please; I cannot bear these slow old things, and I love hansoms. I used to think when I was a little girl that I would like to have one all to myself, and drive about in it for ever.’
A hansom was called, and the pair entered it; they drove swiftly away to St. John’s Wood. Very little more was said on either side, but Forster felt very happy.
They turned into the old familiar street, and reined up before the old familiar ‘studio,’ which Madeline knew and loved so well. They found the dramatist en déshabille and very busy, not on the new play, as Madeline had stated, but on a picture—which, on their entry, he hastily covered up.