They were sitting over the dying fire. The clock on the mantelpiece, beside which Jill’s photograph had stood, pointed to ten minutes past two. Derek spoke in a low, soft voice. Perhaps the doctors are right after all, and two o’clock is the hour at which our self-esteem deserts us, leaving in its place regret for past sins, good resolutions for future behavior.
“What do Algy Martyn and the others say about — you know?”
Freddie hesitated. Pity to start all that again.
“Oh, I know,” went on Derek. “They say I behaved like a cad.”
“Oh, well —”
“They are quite right. I did.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t say that, you know. Faults on both sides and all that sort of rot.”
“I did!” Derek stared into the fire. Scattered all over London at that moment, probably, a hundred worshipful Dry-Salters were equally sleepless and subdued, looking wide-eyed into black pasts. “Is it true she has gone to America, Freddie?”
“She told me she was going.”
“What a fool I’ve been!”
The clock ticked on through the silence. The fire sputtered faintly, then gave a little wheeze, like a very old man. Derek rested his chin on his hands, gazing into the ashes.
“I wish to God I could go over there and find her.”
“Why don’t you?”
“How can I? There may be an election coming on at any moment. I can’t stir.”
Freddie leaped from his seat. The suddenness of the action sent a red-hot corkscrew of pain through Derek’s head.
“What the devil’s the matter?” he demanded irritably. Even the gentle mood which comes with convalescence after a City Dinner is not guaranteed to endure against this sort of thing.
“I’ve got an idea, old bean!”
“Well, there’s no need to dance, is there?”
“I’ve nothing to keep me here, you know. What’s the matter with my popping over to America and finding Jill?” Freddie tramped the floor, aglow. Each beat of his foot jarred Derek, but he made no complaint.
“Could you?” he asked eagerly.
“Of course I could. I was saying only the other day that I had half a mind to buzz over. It’s a wheeze! I’ll get on the next boat and charge over in the capacity of a jolly old ambassador. Have her back in no time. Leave it to me, old thing! This is where I come out strong!”
CHAPTER NINE
1.
New York welcomed Jill, as she came out of the Pennsylvania Station into Seventh Avenue, with a whirl of powdered snow that touched her cheek like a kiss, the cold, bracing kiss one would expect from this vivid city. She stood at the station entrance, a tiny figure beside the huge pillars, looking round her with eager eyes. A wind was whipping down the avenue. The sky was a clear, brilliant tent of the brightest blue. Energy was in the air, and hopefulness. She wondered if Mr Elmer Mariner ever came to New York. It was hard to see how even his gloom would contrive to remain unaffected by the exhilaration of the place.
Yes, New York looked good — good and exciting, with all the taxi-cabs rattling in at the dark tunnel beside her, with all the people hurrying in and hurrying out, with all this medley of street-cars and sky-signs and crushed snow and drays and horses and policemen, and that vast hotel across the street, towering to heaven like a cliff. It even smelt good. She remembered an old picture in Punch, of two country visitors standing on the step of their railway carriage at a London terminus, one saying ecstatically to other: “Don’t speak! Just sniff! Doesn’t it smell of the Season!” She knew exactly how they had felt, and she approved of their attitude. That was the right way to behave on being introduced to a great metropolis. She stood and sniffed reverently. But for the presence of the hurrying crowds, she could almost have imitated the example of that king who kissed the soil of his country on landing from his ship.
She took Uncle Chris’ letter from her bag. He had written from an address on East Fifty-seventh Street. There would be just time to catch him before he went out to lunch. She hailed a taxi-cab which was coming out of the station.