"This is a nice hour of the night to be coming home," she said, trying to speak severely, but she could not maintain the severity in her voice, for his arms were about her and she was hugging him.
"You never told me you were coming," he said. "What brought you over?"
"I've come to see this girl you've got hold of," she answered.
V
"But why didn't you tell me you were coming?" he asked. "I'd have met you at the station!"
She ignored his question. "This is a terrible town," she said. "Mr. Hinde says there's near twice as many people in this place as there is in the whole of Ireland. How in the earthly world do they manage to get about their business?"
"Oh, quite easily," he said nonchalantly, and as he spoke he realised that he had come to be a Londoner.
"When I got out at the station," Mrs. MacDermott continued, "I called a porter and said to him, 'Just put that bag on your shoulder and carry it for me!' 'Where to, ma'am?' says he, and then I gave him your address. I thought the man 'ud drop down dead. 'Is it far?' says I. 'Far!' says he. 'It's miles!' By all I can make out, John, you live as far from the station as Millreagh is from Ballyards. I had to come here in one of them things that runs without horses ... what do you call them?"
"Taxi-cabs!"
"That's the name. It's a demented mad place this. Such traffic! Worse nor Belfast on the fair-day!"