"Dinner was ordered for seven-thirty," Grayle interrupted.
Mrs. O'Rane puckered her lips mischievously and laid one finger on them to enjoin silence.
"Are you listening to my story?" she asked. "If you'd just be patient and not pretend you're working out the times for an infantry advance—" She turned to me with a quick smile. "How long would you say it took to get here from 'The Sanctuary,' Mr. Stornaway?"
"That depends how you go," I said. "It's no time in a taxi."
She clapped her hands in delight.
"That's what I always say! When anyone finds fault with Westminster or the Embankment—fancy finding fault with the Embankment! It's like being compromised with the Albert Memorial. But people do, you know; the Embankment, I mean; they say it's not healthy—well, when they find fault, I always say, 'Ah, but it's so central. You can jump into a taxi and get anywhere in no time!' Just what you said, Mr. Stornaway. Well, as dinner was at half-past seven and it took me no time to get here, there was no point in leaving the house before half-past seven, was there?"
Grayle was nodding at each new development in her rather diffuse story, but there were hard, unamiable lines from nose to mouth, and I fancied that her smiles and tricks and absurdities were not amusing him. As she paused for want of breath, he took a step backward.
"Don't go away, when I'm talking to you!" she cried, catching him by the sleeve. "It's rude, to begin with,—and you know you're always sorry after you've been rude to me. Oh! the times you've had to call with a taxi full of flowers! I will say this for myself, I'm very forgiving—; and, in the second place, you're missing the real pathos of the story, what the Americans call the sob-stuff. I left home at seven-thirty, as I must have told you before, but you will keep interrupting; I walked to the Houses of Parliament—no taxi—; I persevered down Whitehall—no taxi; fainting with fatigue and weeping from sheer mortification, I dragged one foot after another—for the honour of England, you know—up the Haymarket—no taxi—; and, believe me or believe me not, as—you—like, I never saw a taxi till I got here. Then an angel-creature drove up and said, 'Taxi, miss?' and it was almost more than I could bear. I wanted to jump in and drive round and round the Park to shew people that there was just one taxi left in the world and that I'd got it. Nothing but the thought of this wretched play brought me here at all—the play and the cocktail; you must admit that, if anyone ever deserved a cocktail, it's me. And, if you say you haven't ordered me one or that they're bad for me, I shall go home."
She handed me her gloves and held out a bag to Grayle, as she began to take off her cloak.
"Now, is that the whole story?" he asked.