If Brooklands failed to provide me with a catastrophe, it at least helped me to take my mind off my own affairs. Amongst the competitors was a man called Carfax, whom I knew fairly well as a fellow-member of the Barbarians. He was driving a monstrous 90 h.p. abortion; and, after the racing was over, he took me for a spin round the track, at the bracing speed of about eighty miles an hour. Subsequently we dropped in for tea with some friend of his, who had built himself a turreted atrocity in red brick, looking out over Brooklands grounds. Here I met three or four other motor enthusiasts, and listened in dazed humility while they discussed with some warmth the relative merits of various magnetos and carburettors.
It must have been well after six when I started to walk back to Shepperton. The evening was delightfully warm and still, and, soothed by a mild Cabana, which my host had insisted on my accepting before I left, I strolled leisurely on, wrapped once more in a kind of melancholy submission to destiny. I was even able to let my thoughts wander over the events of the previous afternoon without awakening any other emotion but a vague, luxurious sadness. For the moment I seemed to have escaped from my own personality, and to be looking down like one of the gods with infinite pity upon the tragedy of human desire.
Turning off half-way along the canal, I struck into a short cut which led across the fields to the spot where our tent was pitched. About half a mile from the river this path ran through the yard of the farm from which we purchased our eggs and milk. At this point it was really a private thoroughfare, but the farmer, in view of George's profitable appetite, made no objection to our using it as often as we pleased.
I was just opening the gate which led into the yard, when a sharp "woof" brought me to an abrupt halt. The wild suspicion that held me momentarily paralyzed was confirmed a moment later. There was a pattering of feet, and Winston Churchill sidled out from the porch of the house. The moment he saw who it was, he sat down in the mud, and threw up his accursed head in a howl of welcome. With a supreme effort I turned to flee, but it was too late. The door of the farm opened, and—and——
God in heaven! How good it was to see her again!
She was carrying a jug of milk in her dear hands, and she stood still and looked at me with a grave smile.
I took off my hat.
"I hope," she said, "that the urgent business has come to a successful conclusion."
I felt quite incapable of saying anything except "Yes."
"I am glad of that," she went on, "because you missed a very good tea."