“There are such things as motor-buses.”
He sprang to delighted feet. His divinity on a bus top! It was like the Paphian goddess condescending from her dove-drawn chariot to the joggle of a four-wheeler cab.
“Would you really go on one?”
She would. She would start forthwith. The time only to put on a hat. She left him to his heart-beats of happiness, presently to re-appear, hatted, gloved, and smiling.
“You’re quite sure you would like to come? Your work?”
“My work needs the open air as much as I do,” said he.
They went forth, boy and girl on a jaunt, and side by side on the top of the omnibus they gave themselves up to the laughter of the pure sunshine. At Richmond they lunched, for youth must be fed, and afterwards went through the streets of the old town, and stood on the bridge watching the exquisite curve of the river embosomed in the very newest of new greenery, and let its loveliness sink into their hearts. Then they wandered deep into the Park and found a tree from beneath which they could see the deer browsing in the shade; and there they sat, happy in their freedom and isolation. What they said, most of the time, was no great matter. Of the two, perhaps she talked the more; for he had said:
“I am so tired of talking about myself. I have been obliged to, so that it has become a professional habit. And what there is to be known about me, you know. But you—you who have lived such a different life from mine—I know so little of you. In fact, I’ve known nothing of English women such as you. You’re a mystery. Tell me about yourself.”
So she had begun:
“Well, I was born—I shan’t tell you the year—of poor but honest parents——”