ROMANCE plies her lines in many strange places and at odd seasons; and to me, at my now mature and unromantic years, one of the most piquant adventures of my life seems still to have taken place in a fog. It was one of those real fat fogs which begin to settle upon the town as soon as the sun has lost its power and the equinoctial winds have passed. The stillness of the autumn air breeds in London the noisome vapours of the fog; there is no wind, but, overhead, an easterly drift, which always sets in in the time of calms, condenses upon the wretched city the baleful gloom and smoke and soot from out of the pestilential East. Ex oriente nox.
The omnibus I had taken from Victoria rumbled in a melancholy fashion up Grosvenor Place. It staggered in its gait, swung round on its hind wheels, and ricochetted along the dismal roadway. The fog had been brooding all day upon the city, and now that it was night in theory as well as in fact, one seemed more content, as with the natural meeting of congruities. But I suppose it was brighter in outlying suburbs. Such differences are quite usual in the Metropolis. So far as my experience goes, fog descends and smothers all in its ample embrace about the region of Brockley in the south and Camden Town in the north, We had started forth from Victoria, and so lumbered along, a load of folks out of the southern districts who were new to this soupy atmosphere. Some of us were undoubtedly returning, like myself, to sleep in it, with a shrug of the shoulders or with patient resignation. But indubitably the two elderly ladies opposite to me were foreign to that foul and tossing sea outside. They cast glances at the yellow darkness of the windows, incessantly plied the conductor with questions, most of which he ignored, and eagerly exclaimed to each other when the vehicle lurched into the lesser gloom of a street lamp. This—this was encouraging, they seemed to say to each other—perhaps they were nearing safety at last.
I repeat that I conceive them to have been aliens to real London ways and moods. It is possible that they were bound on a visit to a niece or a grandniece even. Probably they were country folk who, on a rare visit to the Metropolis at this untimely season, hovered affectionately between Balham and Kilburn, two poles of two separate but attaching families. I cannot say, for the simple truth is that I never saw them after that night. We were companions in misfortune, met and parted—parted in what circumstances you—shall presently hear. I have no habit of geniality, and was, in those days at least, far too greatly occupied with my own affairs to make acquaintances off-hand and unnecessarily. Thus, though I saw the two elderly women casting their eyes from darkness to darkness, pouring their fears with agitation into each other's ears, and working the conductor into a polite fury with ridiculous questions, I did not interfere. They were meek spinsters, for certain; but they were capable of arousing saint or apostle to anger by their misdirected interrogations. The conductor fell into silence, turned his back on the “inside,” and whistled ostentatiously—even with defiance. And that was practically the beginning of my adventure. For. to say the truth, I sympathised with the conductor, and desired to relieve him—to act sentinel, as it were, in his place for a time. Moreover, he and I were both aware of the horrid misfortune which had happened to us.
Grosvenor Place was “up” towards the northern end, and a flare of watch-lights had scared us. We had lurched, slithered and tottered on our clumsy wheels, in the face of that warning, and had finally turned up a roadway—out of which came the rumble of preceding wheels.
“What's this, Bill?” asked our hen-pecked conductor. He ran alongside to keep himself warm, and flung his hands under his armpits.
“Dunno',” sailed out of Bill's misty elevation: “maybe Chapel Street. I'm follerin' 'King's Cross.' 'E'll get 'er square—that's the sort 'e is,” at which recondite, but doubtless amusing joke, both laughed.
It seemed that we pursued the King's Cross omnibus through the bye-ways of Belgravia. Both of us aimed at coming out eventually into Piccadilly by Hyde Park Corner, so that Bill was probably justified in his theory. Yet, as it chanced, he was unable to keep practice in line with it, and the conductor and I were the first to discover the crisis. “King's Cross” proved a broken reed. Perhaps “King's Cross” was following some guide of his own, like us, and lost him; or it may be that “King's Cross” was only vainglorious, independent, and over-confident. Or, yet again, “King's Cross” may have been drunk: it would have been almost pardonable in such weather. We stumbled faithfully after “King's Cross”—so faithfully that we nearly collided with him. We found him at a standstill, and I clambered on the top under the roof of fog to listen.
Bill was objurgating, and the conductor of “King's Cross” was jeering. There was not the faintest suggestion of peace and good-fellowship, which I was aware we all sorely needed that black night.
“A reg'lar corf-drop,” suggested Bill, with embroidery of red and blue. “Last time I seen 'im,” he explained confidentially in a loud voice to the other conductor, “'e was findin' a needle in a 'aystack, without lookin',” and in a still louder voice, which rose as an imprecation, “'Twas all them carrots he sneaked at tea off of his stable-mate; they're a-layin' on his stummick.”
This derisive spirit, as a matter of fact, appeared to me somewhat out of keeping not only with justice but with the crisis. We had lost our way through trusting to “'King's Cross,” and it was certainly not equitable to abuse “King's Cross” because of our blind confidence. Moreover, it would not remedy matters. As I climbed down, the conductor, who had listened to the war of tongues philosophically, leaped on his step from the kerb, and there was that in his eye which gave me pause. I had returned full of my news, but the conductor's eye implored me. He seemed to wave his hand in despair at the two elderly ladies and ask mercy. I sat down without opening my mouth.
“Do you know why we have stopped?” demanded a very polite old gentleman in the corner.
I suggested the fog, which seemed to satisfy his not very inquisitive mind, and he folded his hands and closed his eyes again. At seventy I suppose we are resigned to fortune; and after all the omnibus was comfortable, and some one else was responsible.
The two elderly ladies began to talk to each other in low whispers, and once or twice endeavoured to attract the attention of the conductor. But he was adamant. It was the second stoppage that did the mischief, accompanied as it was by a much louder match between Bill and “King's Cross.”
“What is it? oh, what is it?” demanded the elderly ladies in agitation; and an officious, enterprising clerk of seedy aspect, who had at last finished cracking and eating nuts, volunteered to find out. He returned with the news: we were lost!
The alarm was instantaneous; but, to my surprise, the effect on the two elderly ladies was not to start another rain of questions. Instead they, tremulously but firmly, demanded that the omnibus should be stopped. We were now going at a walking pace,
“We ain't got there yet,” said the conductor with jaunty arrogance.
“Stop the 'bus, conductor. You must stop the 'bus,” said the elderly ladies, still tremulous and imperative.
“Where d'yer want to go? Let's see. You was for Praed Street, wasn't you?” asked the worried man.
“Yes, but we can't stay here—we can't stay in a lost omnibus,” declared the two with indignant emphasis. “Stop the 'bus.”
“Best stay where you are, lady,” remarked the conductor dispassionately—even, as it occurred to me, now compassionately.
“If you don't stop the 'bus, I'll report you,” said the most angular elderly lady, prodding with her umbrella to give emphasis to her febrile anger.
The conductor rang his bell abruptly, the omnibus came to a pause, and the two timorous creatures descended carefully into the pitiless night. It seemed tragic; it certainly was pathetic; but yet what could be done? To stem that tide of insane panic was impossible; only facts and experience could do that.
“Here yare. Bank! Bank!” cried out the conductor of “King's Cross,” facetiously, glimpsing what was happening.
“Conductor, have you any notion where we are?” I asked.
“Not the slightest,” said he, with cheerful sullenness. “Go ahead, Bill. Any other lady want to be left till called for? Any other lady for a night in the streets?” As a matter of fact there were now no ladies left in the omnibus; only the old gentleman, the clerk, and myself.
“Clang,” went the bell, and the omnibus creaked and rolled on.
“'Spose they thought I was goin' to land 'em in the river,” said the conductor tome with bitter emphasis; “afore they're done they'll be in West Kensin'ton.”
I must confess the picture was a little too ugly for me, and I was pricked by my conscience. Had I used my tongue of simple eloquence I might have dissuaded them; whereas the hospitality of the conductor had obviously only terrified them further to desperation. They had encountered only a cold, unfriendly silence, as dull and repellent as the night. I rose, and swung out of the omnibus.
“What, another? Steady!—why” But I heard no more of the conductor's derision. “King's Cross” and his companion thundered in the unseen, and I was alone in the middle of the road.
Now these deliberations had run through my head faster than they have been set on paper. It must have been no more than twenty paces back to the spot at which the unfortunate women had alighted. Around, above, were the whirling wreaths of the fog, so dense that from where I was not even the light of any lamp could be detected. Yet I had a sense of direction in my head. Wherever I might be, the pavement must be near. I stepped towards it, and found it. Half a dozen steps farther took me within the narrow circle of a light which gleamed high up, as it had been from an infinite distance I knew, however, from old experience that it was a lamplight and was but three yards away. From infinite distance, with the first stride, the pin-head of light swelled into a brightening eye; with the next the eye flashed and sparkled only half a mile away; and with the last, light emerged in a radiant dazzle above my head, and I just avoided collision with a woman.
I stopped involuntarily. I had reached the spot where I had calculated that the unfortunates had got down, and here was one. But where was the other? Before I could think, a trembling voice spoke:
“Oh, I'm so glad you came. It was so kind of you to come, even after” it paused: “I don't know what I should have done by myself.”
I did not quite understand why this solitary condition was necessary, seeing that the other could not be so greatly far away. But the woman took my arm, with something appealing and reluctant in her touch, such as was proper to her primness of nature and time of age.
“I am glad to be of any assistance in the world,” said I civilly. “I was afraid you would be in trouble, and so got out.”
Through the rolling sea of blackness my voice returned to me muffled. We had begun to move, the lady's hand tremulously within my arm.
“We shall get somewhere soon,” I declared cheerfully, and then again I remembered the companion. Which was this—the one with the flatter figure and the greyer hair? Or was it the juvenile who had been the bold interrogator of the conductor? From her agitation I guessed that this must be the more fearful sister. But what had become of the bold bearder of conductors? Had the fog simply swallowed her up? I came to a pause, compelled by the pursuing image of a lost and wandering female: if my companion had no heart, I had, and would show it.
“I beg your pardon,” I began, “but I am afraid” But I got no further, for even through the yellow opacity of the lamp above me I was aware of a furred cloak which I had not seen upon either of the middle-aged ladies in the omnibus.
“You are afraid?” she replied, with something of distance in her voice; and the ring of it, now that I was on the alert, confirmed my suspicion.
“I am afraid you're cold,” I ended rather lamely, for I confess the situation flustered me.
A little uncertain laughter came from my companion.
“You are very kind,” said she, in a softer way; “I don't know what has come over you. I suppose it's penitence, is it? No, thank you—I'm not cold. Indeed, I have had heat enough to warm me. Is it penitence? But I will not ask. You are good to repent.”
Was it penitence? Who, then, was I, and what was she? I became, of a sudden, dumfoundered by the rôle. Of course, I should have spoken and discovered myself, but somehow I didn't. This was not either of the middle-aged ladies, for certain; but I will confess to an insatiate curiosity to know who it was, and what she was like. There was not the slightest chance of discovering in that blackness, which is, perhaps, why I said nothing—at least, nothing relevant.
“You may call it penitence,” said I, lightly. “Even the plainest woman must not be left out on such a night.”
“Plainest!” she echoed sharply, with something in her voice.
“Much less a beautiful,” I continued quickly.
Again her pleasant laughter sounded in the fog, but I could see nothing of her now, as we were piercing thick, utter darkness.
“It must be penitence,” said she. “I think you must be in a self-deprecating, gentle mood. I too am almost penitent.”
“You mean?” I asked.
“Oh, well, one has moods, particularly of a black foggy night. And moreover, Captain Moreton, I hate having my actions dictated. I dislike control.”
“T can understand that,” I answered, conscious of the hand that still rested in my arm. “Yet, if you marry”
It was a wild shot, and I risked all. But it turned out satisfactory.
“I was pushed over the precipice once, I am not anxious to jump down voluntarily again.” She spoke dryly. “But I am infinitely obliged to you for your penitence. Otherwise, perhaps, I might not have reached home at all.”
“Well, you have not got there yet,” said I.
“Is that a threat?” she asked, with a spice of gaiety in her voice. “I believe you threaten. Yet I like your threats in that amiable voice better than those sour tones in the cab.”
Well, I was Captain Moreton, she was a widow, and I had been rude to her in a cab. I wondered why.
“In similar circumstances I should offend again,” I said.
She was silent a moment, and then out of the nether darkness her voice issued meditatively, yet with a note, as it were, of defiance.
“Do you suppose there will ever be born a man who does not look upon woman as his necessary adjunct? Are we to have no rights, because the sultans of the world deign to cast their eyes on us? And, because you fancy yourself in love with me, am I therefore not to exercise my own independence? It is amazing, but it is man.”
I was in love with her, then; and really by the sound of her voice I had no objection. I was also jealous, and I had been rude. She had, no doubt, stopped the cab and got down to avoid me, in a fury; and I, no doubt, had driven on in a sulk. But now that I had come back, what was I to do? It was abominably cold and discomfortable, but I had not noticed that for the last ten minutes.
“Have you any idea where we are?” my companion interrupted my meditations to inquire.
I confessed that I had not.
“I thought I was quite close at home,” she said, “or otherwise I should not have got out.” There was quite a shy touch in this, as if she would have said: “Now confess I am honest to confess that.”
I think I answered it as best I might, by gently pressing the hand to my side.
But at that moment there arose two bright eyes out of the circumambient gloom, and stared at us fiercely like an animal. It was a brougham, at rest by the kerb, and surely spelled safety. I moved up to it.
“Can you tell me where this is?” I asked the coachman.
There was a certain annoyance in his voice as he replied: “I was goin' to ask you that, sir. I'm bound for Gloucester Road to pick up my master.”
“Oh, well,” said I, “you're not anywhere near there. This is somewhere in Belgravia, as far as I know; but I won't say it isn't Chelsea.”
“If I could only get to Brompton Road,” began the coachman sullenly.
But what was the use of hearing him out? If he could only get to Brompton Road! Great heavens, if we could only get home, wherever that was! Brompton Road was home, as it was life, light, warmth, safety, instead of these implacable, grim silences, deserts and darkness. I turned from him abruptly.
To say the truth, I had forgotten the strong eyes of the brougham and their possibilities, but as I turned and met my companion I became suddenly aware of them. They were borne home to me by the apparition of a face, a face which flashed in the gloom, if I may put it that way, and vanished. I had a glimpse of a set of regular features, of a complexion vastly dimmed and shrouded, and of a delicious contour. I could say no more, but I could have sworn to the beauty.
“He hasn't any idea,” I said lightly.
The gravity of her voice startled me, recalling those possibilities again. Her hand had dropped from my arm.
“Would you mind coming three steps away from the carriage?” she said in a very quiet voice, wholly different from that which she had used hitherto.
I moved with her, and there was nothing about us but night. The brougham was as completely gone as if it had driven round the corner of the fog, but we could hear the horses champing five yards away.
“I should be glad to know who you are, and why you did this?”
She spoke very quietly, and without a tremor. I had almost expected it, and perhaps because it was dark and we could not see each other, I was not ashamed.
“My name is Oliver Weston,” I answered, as directly as she had questioned, “and I did it for the first five minutes because I thought you some one else, for the second because I”—I hesitated—“for no earthly reason that is any excuse,” I said at last.
“I do not quite understand,” she said, still very firmly; “I am anxious not to do you wrong, before leaving you. Will you tell me whom you thought me?”
I explained. “There were two elderly ladies in the omnibus,” I said. “I thought”
“I see,” she interrupted with asperity: “you were anxious to play your tricks on two unfortunate elderly ladies who”
“On the contrary,” I interrupted eagerly, “I got out to be of help to them, and—and”
I hesitated, but she finished my sentence for me: “And you took me for one of them,” she said, with the same asperity.
“It was dark,” I said; “it was the fog.”
“May I ask how you discovered I was not one of them?” she inquired, with most cold civility.
“It was partly your voice, I think,” I said, “and partly your dress.”
She said nothing for a moment, and then: “You have been very considerate,” she said, with obvious sarcasm. “I thank you for your services so far, and now I will wish you good-evening.”
“Please—a moment,” I pleaded, grasping at vacancy. “You cannot go alone into this fog. It would be the elderly ladies and the omnibus over again.”
“Well, I have played the part once, apparently,” she replied with hauteur. “Besides, I shall use the brougham.”
“If that coachman reaches anywhere rational before daybreak, I shall be greatly surprised,” I said emphatically. “He hasn't the remotest notion where he is.”
“Nor have you,” she said sharply.
“I am going to ask at once at one of these houses,” I said with determination. “I beg you will do nothing until I have done that. Besides,” I added, as I heard the noise of wheels, “the brougham has gone.” There reached us immediately on that the sound of a blow, of smashing glass, and of oaths. “There,” said I: “he has run over the kerb into a lamp-post.”
It seemed to me that the fact impressed her, for she made no answer, and then, as if a sudden recollection came to her: “You forget. You have unwarrantably obtained my confidence. I can have no further dealings with you.”
I knew, of course, to what she was referring, and I thanked Heaven for the inspiration I had. “A stupid, senseless jest, of which I repent, and of which, to say truly, I understand nothing. And what is more,” said I, “as I neither know your name nor have seen your face, it can matter nothing to you. Look upon me as a policeman—X 1001—and use my arm as far as your door.”
“You have not seen me?” she said incredulously.
“I know from your voice and your air that you are young,” I boldly answered; “but beyond that, you may be one of my elderly omnibus ladies, for all I know.”
Again she was silent, but at last spoke. “Very well, I will accept your offer, sir,” she said. “Will you kindly knock at one of these houses and discover where we are?”
The voice was incredibly cold and formal, but the command was imperious. I had no option save to obey; and I groped along the iron railings to find an opening.
“I think it would be wise if you would wait here,” I said timidly. “Then there will be no chance of your being lost.”
She made no answer, but followed me, and by degrees I edged my way to a gate, which gave open abruptly and caused me to enter, sprawling.
“Did you fall? Are you hurt?” came a voice through the fog.
“It's all right,” I returned. “Please remain where you are. I will soon come back with news.”
I believed so from my heart, for I could not have anticipated that the house would prove blank, empty, and desolate. The bell clanked in a distant cellar, like a wail of ghosts inhabiting remote darknesses. I turned and fled, and poured out the truth to the lady. “Never mind,” said I, thinking I observed discouragement in her attitude as she hung by the railings, “I will try the next.”
I did, and by an odd coincidence the result was the same; that house also was empty.
“Perhaps this road's all empty houses,” was my companion's lugubrious suggestion.
I scouted the idea, and skipped two gates the next time, on the off-chance that I had struck a vacant row. It may be preposterous, but the third house also returned no sound save the tinkling, melancholy bell. The lady showed signs of alarm, which was evidenced in her resuming my arm. I believe she did it involuntarily. There was something terrifying in the abysmal silence, the impenetrable fog, and the vacant buildings.
“I will walk on for a hundred yards and try,” I said resolutely, and we walked on arm-in-arm.
Dejection had made us sympathetic, and I think she had forgotten my offence. When, after stumbling across a roadway, we brought up at a corner house, she said somewhat timidly: “I—I think I will go with you up to the house.”
I did not warn her that it was possible, if this house was inhabited at last, that the light might discover us to each other. I only assented briskly. I was right, as it proved, in my thought of the illumination. The fanlight was ablaze, and even the fog scattered in its circle. My companion's face and hair were aureate; gleamed and shone against the white night behind us. As I rang I saw, and I had then even the thought that she meant me to see. At least she saw me looking and did not move or hide her wonderful face.
I turned only at the sound of feet along the hall; the door went open from me suddenly, and the most astonishing din saluted my ears. A young man in reckless undress fronted me, with his hands on his hips; but even before I could get out my question the refrain of a comic song was yelled riotously from an interior room, and there was a crash of falling crockery.
“Would you be so good as to tell me where this is?” I said hurriedly.
“This,” said the young man in the shirt-sleeves, “is Liberty Hall, by G” to which a second crash in the room beyond gave loud endorsement.
The chorus broke out anew, and the young man joined it. “We'll all be merry—we'll all be gay....” It was uncertain of air, but he seemed to find pleasure in the mere beauty of the words.
“I beg your pardon, I have lost my way in the fog. Can you tell me what street this is?” I said politely.
He hummed a bar of his song, and broke out into laughter. “Clapham Junction, old boy—change here for Hong-Kong, Suez and Saskatchewan,” he said raucously; and then, observing the lady, altered his voice to a wheedling tone. “Beg your pardon, my dear; I didn't see you. Lost in the fog, are you? Come in, come in! Pretty faces”
Something discharged from the back of the hall—a cushion, or a hassock, I gathered—took him in the small of the back, and he staggered over the threshold amid a storm of laughter.
“Come away: let us go,” whispered the lady in my ears in distress; and, obeying the pressure of her arm, I turned away.
Three steps, and the house, the shirt-sleeved man and the fanlight were swallowed up. I believe she was more at ease in that deadly wilderness of fog than in the full glare of bacchanalian vulgarity.
“We won't try any more houses,” she said, with a little sob; “I would sooner stay here and walk on. We must get somewhere soon. We will just walk straight on and on.”
“I think,” said I, “that if you would tell me where you live, or what address you want, I might perhaps be in a better position to guide you aright.”
She hesitated a moment, and then: “I want to go to” But at this this point we all but collided with two shadows that rose like giants swiftly out of the gloom. The shadows stopped abruptly as we did, and one began hurriedly, and with a very plaintive voice:
“Oh, could you kindly tell us where we are? We don't know, and we've been wandering about for half an hour, ever since we got out of an omnibus and”
Omnibus! And that voluble voice! These were the two elderly sisters, then, and they, like us, were fog-bound. I felt a pity for them warm my heart, a pity which not only survived in part from my original impulse to befriend them, but had also its source in deeper and more subtle feelings. The lady's hand still trembled within my arm.
“Unfortunately I cannot tell you where we are,” I said. “But perhaps we shall find some one who can.”
You will perceive with what generous warmth I welcomed them thus rashly.
“Thank you, oh, thank you!” they gushed, and proceeded to range themselves by my side along the pavement. The hand slipped unobtrusively but determinately from my arm. I felt I had lost something.
The elderly ladies chattered, full of their adventures, which they appeared to think were now over. I seemed to have entered a bustling, familiar crowd, and I felt I preferred the previous solitude. It had been cold, it had been dark, but it had been refined. What was I now but a conductor, to be argued with, commanded, pestered with questions and anxieties, and poked in the ribs with umbrellas? I began to feel like my friend on the omnibus, and to excuse him. Suddenly I stopped under a lamp-post.
“This road seems to me so narrow,” I said, “that it may be a mews. If it is so, it will be only a cul-de-sac, and no fit place for ladies. If you will wait here I will explore and return in a few minutes.”
The elderly sisters clung to me physically. They refused to let me go. They pointed out that they wanted to get to Praed Street, and that it must be late. If they lost me it seemed that they lost everything. The lady made no comment. I think there was a certain nobility in the courage which preferred isolation, abandonment in the nocturnal wilds, to association with such pitiful exhibitions of alarm. She put a hand on me gently, as a snowflake.
“You will not—you will remember”
“I will walk along the kerb and count the paces. You can rely upon me wholly,” I said earnestly.
The elderly sisters accompanied me like wings, one on each side, and denounced London plaintively. I was busy counting, according to my promise, and hardly listened; but suddenly I stopped my reckoning, as two eyes glistened in the darkness.
“Cab!” said I.
“Yes, sir.”
The hansom lurched along the kerb.
“Get in,” said I to the elderly sisters, and they almost tumbled over one another in the act.
“Have you any idea where you are, cabby?” said I.
“No, sir,” said he, promptly and cheerfully.
“Hush,—not so loud,” I said in a whisper. “Here is half a sovereign. These ladies want to go to Praed Street. Take them as best you can to wherever you can,”
I don't suppose his destination mattered to him, as he had an equal chance of arriving anywhere, and he probably got another half-sovereign out of them, if they ever arrived at all. At any rate he thanked me, as did the sisters, and I left them. I heard the wheels moving, and they were gone. I walked back to the lady.
“Where are the—what have you done with—those women?” she asked.
“I haven't made away with them,” I replied, lightly; “I found a cab for them.”
“You found a cab for them?” she repeated coldly. “They were indeed lucky to find so capable a champion. It would be well if every distressed woman were so fortunate.”
What a fool I was! She thought I had given them the cab in preference to her. Well, so I had, in a way. But it had an ugly look. I explained that to be in a cab was worse than to walk, and I recalled to her the accident we had heard the brougham meet with.
“Which, of course, is a very good reason,” she replied disdainfully, “for imperilling the safety and bones of two poor old ladies who trusted you.”
There was, as you will see, nothing for it after that but silence, and accordingly I held my tongue. It was she who spoke, not quite so severely, yet as one still sitting in judgment.
“And pray is it a mews?”
This took me fairly in the wind, for, to say the truth, I had clean forgotten what my mission had been. The excitement, and satisfaction, of getting rid of the elderly sisters had made me entirely oblivious.
I stammered. “I will go again and see,” I said.
“No,” she said, and there was less austerity still in her voice. “I am not afraid; I will go too.”
We went in silence, but suddenly my companion gave vent to an exclamation.
“Is that house painted green?” she asked excitedly.
“Yes,” I answered, peering through the fog.
“See if there is a pillar-box on your right, please,” she commanded.
There was.
“It is only six houses farther,” she cried, with a note of triumph. “I know exactly where I am now. No. 9, please. Do look out for No. 9.”
I found No. 9 very easily; the bell rang, the door opened; and my companion turned on the doorstep, and put out her hand.
“It is very late,” said she, with a charming smile, “or I would ask you to come in. But no doubt you will be anxious to get home yourself. I am very grateful to you.”
I murmured something in deprecation, but I was not at all anxious to get home.
“Your coming was a godsend,” she said pleasantly. Her hand lingered in mine, as familiarly as it had rested within my arm in the streets.
“If I have taken some one's place by mistake, I am thankful,” I said boldly. “And let me confess I am not really penitent.”
I could not see if she changed colour, but her voice had no suggestion of offence in it.
“Oh, you have taken no one's place,” she said lightly. Her eyes flashed like a challenge at mine. “Perhaps when we are both recovered, Mr. Weston,” she said, “I might be allowed to thank you under less embarrassing circumstances.”
She gave a tiny, pretty laugh, as if to suggest embarrassment; and I like to think that her voice was quite soft then.
The door closed, and as I passed out into the street I only remembered and thought of her look. I will confess I was mightily moved; and it was not until I had gone with my head in the air, at reckless random, a hundred yards or more, that I was suddenly brought up with the reflection that I knew neither her name nor her address!
Condemning my folly in proper terms, I retraced my way. I would be content with the address at present. No. 9! No. 9, what? I walked a hundred paces backwards and ran into the railings of a square. I vaguely remembered crossing a long stretch of metalled road. This must be the square. But in which direction was I to go? I made my choice, and started again, and ten minutes later I was up against the square railings again. So far as I can calculate I must have battled with the problem of how to reach No. 9 for quite an hour. You see, as I did not know how to reach any place, I might just as well be trying to reach No. 9. At the end of an hour I heard a growing rumble of noise. By this time I was wandering mechanically, as an automaton might do, groping along railings, tapping on kerbs, and warding off a thousand menaces that emerged from the fog. Then, within five minutes the curtain thinned, lightened, and took off over the houses; and Knightsbridge was beginning to roar again in front of me.
That was the irony of it. I had wandered for an hour, but I had not the faintest idea where. So soon as I had definitely lost her, the fog lifted. Yes, I had lost her, as one might have dropped a jewel, in the night. The idea of recovering her tickled me with a ghastly sense of the ludicrous. She was swallowed up behind the veil of that black, malodorous, and malignant fog.
There was nothing to do but to take a cab home.