Luckily a four-wheeled cab overtook us. Pasquale stopped it,
squeezed the bundle inside, and held the door open for the
faltering and bewildered woman, as if she had been the authentic
duchessa at Ealing.
"You were saying, Ordeyne," he observed, as the cabman drove off
with three shillings and his incoherent fare, "you were saying
that your breakfast disagreed with you."
In spite of my heaviness of heart, I laughed and loved the man.
There was something fantastically chivalrous in the action;
something superb in the contempt of convention; something
whimsical, adventurous, unexpected; and something divine in the
wrathful pity; and something irresistible in his impudent
apostrophe to myself. It has been the one flash of comfort
during this long and desolate day.
I have kept my promise to Judith. I have lunched and dined at
the club, and in the library of the club I have tried to while
away the hours. I intended this morning to make the necessary
arrangements for the marriage. After my interview with Judith I
had not the heart.
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