The thought of his dinner jacket reminded him of his puzzledom. What were Emmy and himself doing in that galley of a railway carriage when they might have been so much more comfortable in their own beds in Nunsmere? It was an impenetrable mystery to which the sleeping girl who was causing him such acute though cheerfully borne discomfort alone had the key. In vain did he propound to himself the theory that such speculation betokened an indelicate mind; in vain did he ask himself with unwonted severity what business it was of his; in vain did he try to hitch his thoughts to Patent Safety Railway Carriages, which were giving him a great deal of trouble; in vain did he try to sleep. The question haunted him. So much so that when Emmy awoke and rubbed her eyes, and in some confusion apologized for the use to which she had put his shoulder, he was almost ashamed to look her in the face.
"What are you going to do when you get to Victoria?" Emmy asked.
Septimus had not thought of it. "Go back to Nunsmere, I suppose, by the next train—unless you want me?"
"No, I don't want you," said Emmy absently. "Why should I?"
And she gazed stonily at the suburban murk of the great city until they reached Victoria. There, a dejected four-wheeled cab with a drooping horse stood solitary on the rank—a depressing object. Emmy shivered at the sight.
"I can't stand it. Drive me to my door. I know I'm a beast, Septimus dear, but I am grateful. I am, really."
The cab received them into its musty interior and drove them through the foggy brown of a London winter dawn. Unimaginable cheerlessness enveloped them. The world wore an air of disgust at having to get up on such a morning. The atmosphere for thirty yards around them was clear enough, with the clearness of yellow consommé, but ahead it stood thick, like a purée of bad vegetables. They passed through Belgravia, and the white-blinded houses gave an impression of universal death, and the empty streets seemed waiting for the doors to open and the mourners to issue forth. The cab, too, had something of the sinister, in that it was haunted by the ghosts of a fourpenny cigar and a sixpenny bottle of scent which continued a lugubrious flirtation; and the windows rattled a danse macabre. At last it pulled up at the door of Emmy's Mansions in Chelsea.
She looked at him very piteously, like a frightened child. Her pretty mouth was never strong, but when the corners drooped it was babyish. She slipped her hand in his.
"Don't leave me just yet. It's silly, I know—but this awful journey has taken everything out of me. Every bit of it has been worse than the last. Edith—that's my maid—will light a fire—you must get warm before you start—and she'll make some coffee. Oh, do come. You can keep the cab."
"But what will your maid think?" asked Septimus, who for all his vagueness had definite traditions as to the proprieties of life.