Miss Ley was glad that Edward could not stay more than two days, for she was always afraid of surprising him. Nothing is more tedious than to talk with persons who treat your most obvious remarks as startling paradoxes; and Edward suffered likewise from that passion for argument, which is the bad talker’s substitute for conversation. People who cannot talk are always proud of their dialectic: they want to modify your tritest observations, and even if you suggest that the day is fine insist on arguing it out.
Bertha, in her husband’s presence, had suffered singular discomfort; it had been such a constraint that she found it an effort to talk with him, and she had to rack her brain for subjects of conversation. Her heart was perceptibly lightened when she returned from Victoria after seeing him off, and it gave her a thrill of pleasure to hear Gerald jump up when she came in. He ran towards her with glowing eyes.
“Oh, I’m so glad. I’ve hardly had a chance of speaking to you these last two days.”
“We have the whole afternoon before us.”
“Let’s go for a walk, shall we?”
Bertha agreed, and like two schoolfellows they sallied out. The day was sunny and warm, and they wandered by the river. The banks of the Thames about Chelsea have a pleasing trimness, a levity which is infinitely grateful after the sedateness of the rest of London. The embankments, in spite of their novelty, recall the days when the huge city was a great, straggling village, when the sedan-chair was a means of locomotion, and ladies wore patches and hoops; when epigram was the fashion and propriety was not.
Presently, as they watched the gleaming water, a penny steamboat approached the adjoining stage, and gave Bertha an idea.
“Would you like to take me to Greenwich?” she cried. “Aunt Polly’s dining out; we can have dinner at the Ship and come back by train.”
“By Jove, it will be ripping.”
They bolted down the gangway and took their tickets; the boat started, and Bertha, panting, sank on a seat. She felt a little reckless, pleased with herself, and amused to see Gerald’s unmeasured delight.