"Just as you like," said Billy sadly. "I could do a chop, though—by Jove, I could!"
"Jump in, William," I said. "We'll all have the best dinner in London to-night—unless we're in gaol."
Mile after mile, the big car carried us back swiftly through the flat lanes and roads which we had so lately traversed. I was too happy to talk: most of the time I just lay back in my seat holding Mercia's hand; while Billy, in the intervals of bemoaning his hunger, filled up the gaps which we had necessarily left in our somewhat hurried explanations in the boat. Any doubt that he may have originally felt about Mercia had plainly vanished. She was part of the firm now—"one of us," so to speak; and Billy's manner clearly signified that he approved of the change.
It was just a quarter-past five by Big Ben as we swung round the corner of Parliament Square and drew up outside the Westminster Palace Hotel.
We were all of us badly in need of a little tidying-up, so the extra fifteen minutes before our appointment with Gordon was a welcome interval. I know in my own case that, what with the dust from the road, and the still surviving traces of my argument with Sangatte, I found such a rare-looking ruffian gazing back at me from the bedroom mirror that I felt surprised the hotel people had consented to receive us.
However, a bath, a comb, and other toilet accessories soon restored me to respectability, and sitting on the bed I waited for Billy, who was taking his turn at the looking-glass. It was then that, putting my hand in my pocket, I came across Lady Baradell's note. Although, to tell the truth, I had forgotten all about it in my somewhat strenuous employment since its arrival, I opened it now not without a certain pleasant curiosity as to what it might contain.
"I suppose I ought to be grateful to you, but I don't think I am. Now and always you have my good wishes. A. B."
I read it through slowly, and the picture of a beautiful woman, her bronze hair streaming loose over her shoulders, her wonderful amber eyes fixed on mine, rose with extraordinary clearness before my mind. With a little sigh over Nature's well-intentioned, if ill-adjusted, efforts, I took out a match, and striking it on the end of the bed, set fire to the bottom corner of the note.
"What are you burning?" asked Billy, looking up from the depths of his towel.
"Only a little bit of the past," I said sadly.