Thus, if I had expected her to be impressed by the size of the house or elegance of the furniture, I should have been disappointed. Like the thorough woman of the world that she was, she lounged in a velvet arm-chair as if she had been accustomed to it from babyhood, and though her bright, dark eyes glanced into every corner, not a word or a look escaped her to prove that it was all new to her. As a rule one finds this calm sang-froid and savoir faire only at the extreme ends of the social scale, though of course there are exceptions.
All this time I was quite in the dark still as to why she had honoured me with a visit, but when she had eaten her third banana, swept all the biscuit crumbs in her lap into her mouth, and finished the lemonade, she remarked, with her usual abruptness, “Want ter see a launch?”
“Certainly!” I replied, with commendable presence of mind. “When, and where?”
“Now!” she returned with equal brevity. “There’s one on to-day down at Victoria Docks at three o’clock, an’ I think we can just abaht do it.”
“But it isn’t Bank Holiday! How is it you are able to leave your work?” I injudiciously asked, for Belinda Ann stiffened and froze at once, and looked for a minute as if she repented of having come.
She thought better of it, however, for presently she remarked briefly, “Don’t often get a launch, when we do we tyke a holiday. If they don’t like it at the factry, they ken lump it. Needn’t come if yer don’t want!” I was getting used by this time to her curious way of talking like a sixpenny telegram, so I hastened to assure her I wanted to come very much, and as it was obviously now or never, I left a hurried note for my absent family to say where I had gone, dressed in frantic haste, and was soon ready to accompany Belinda Ann.
There were two ways of getting to the docks, by Underground or omnibus. The latter took much longer, but as I have a constitutional dislike to the Underground, I proposed the alternative route, and my companion politely assented.
“We must take a Blackwall from Piccadilly,” I remarked, as I stepped briskly out, “but when we get there, I’ll put myself into your hands, Belinda.”
Again she agreed, having become unusually quiet, and not till we turned into Regent Street did she regain her cheerfulness. I did not particularly notice it at the time, but long afterwards I found out the reason, which was briefly this. There were two ways of reaching Piccadilly from our house, one being down Regent Street, crowded at that time of day, and the other down deserted back streets.
Luckily I chose the former, and Belinda had been watching to see which I should take, being quite ready to assume that I was ashamed of her if I had gone the quiet way.