"Didn't you know?"

"How could I possibly?"

"No, you couldn't of course, but I never thought it of _you_."

"Nor I of you," he answered. "I'll test you. 'The cow is in the garden.'"

"'The cat is in the lake,'" she answered instantly.

"'The pig is in the hammock?'"

"'What difference _does_ it make?'" she shouted triumphantly.

For the rest of the drive to Brighton their laughter never stopped.

Nothing draws a man and a woman together as laughter does--when it is intimate to themselves, a mutual language not to be understood of others. They became extraordinary friends, as if they had known each other from childhood, and the sunset fires in all their glory pa.s.sed unheeded.

Although he could hear nothing of what they said, there was a sympathetic grin upon the chauffeur's face at the ringing mirth behind him.

"It's your turn to suppose now, Mr. Lothian."

"Well--wait a minute--oh, let's suppose that Mr. Podley once wrote a moral poem--you to play!"

Rita thought for a minute or two, her lips rippling with merriment, her young eyes shining.

A little chuckle escaped her, her shoulders began to shake and then she shrieked with joy.

"I've got it, splendid! Listen! It's to inculcate kindness to animals.

"I am only a whelk, Sir, Though if you but knew, Although I'm a whelk, Sir, The Lord made me too!"

"Magnificent!--your turn."

"Well, what will the t.i.tle of the Toftrees' next novel be?"

"'Cats' meat!'--I say, do you know that I have invented the one _quite_ perfect opening for a short story. You'll realise when you hear it that it stands alone. It's perfect, like Giotto's Campanile or 'The Hound of Heaven.'"

"Tell me quickly!"

"Mr. Florimond awoke from a deep sleep. There was n.o.body there but the Dog Trust."

"You are wonderful. I see it, of course. It's style itself! And how would you end the story? Have you studied the end yet?"

"Yes. I worked at it all the time I was in Italy last year. You shall hear that too. Mr. Florimond sank into a deep sleep. There was n.o.body there but the Dog Trust."

... He told her of his younger days in London when he shared a flat with a brother journalist named Pa.s.she.

"We lived the most delightful freakish lives you can imagine," he said.

"When we came into breakfast from our respective bedrooms we had a ritual which never varied. We neither looked at each other nor spoke, but sat down opposite at the table. We each had our newspaper put in our place by the man who looked after us. We opened the papers and pretended to read for a moment. Then Basil looked over the top of his at me, very gravely. 'We live in stirring times, Mr. Lothian!' he would say, and I used to answer, 'Indeed, Mr. Pa.s.she, we do!' Then we became as usual."

"How perfectly sweet! I must do that with Ethel--that's the girl I live with, you know--only we don't have the papers. It runs up so!" she concluded, with a wise little air that sent a momentary throb of pain through a man who had never understood (even in his poorest days) what money meant; and probably never would understand.

Poor, dear little girl! Why couldn't he give her--

"We're here, Mr. Lothian! Look at the lights! Brighton at last!"

Rita had been whisked away by a chambermaid and he was waiting for her in the great hall of the Metropole. He had washed, reserved a table, and swallowed a gin and bitters. He felt rather tired physically, and a little depressed also. His limbs had suddenly felt cramped as he left the motor car, the wild exhilaration of their fun had made him tired and nervous now. His bad state of health a.s.serted itself unpleasantly, his forehead was clammy and the palms of his hands wet.

No champagne for him! Rita should have champagne if she liked, but whiskey, whiskey! that was the only thing. "I can soon pull myself together," he thought. "She won't know. I'll tell the fellow to bring it in a decanter."

Presently she came to him among the people who moved or sat about under the lights of the big, luxurious vestibule. She was a little shy and nervous, slightly flushed and anxious, for she had never been in such a splendid public place before.

He gathered that from her whispered remarks, as with a curious and pleasant air of proprietorship he took her to the dining rooms.

There was a bunch of amber-coloured roses upon her plate as she sat down at their table, which he had sent there a few minutes before. She pressed them to her face with a shy look of pleasure as he conferred with the head waiter, who himself came hurrying up to them.

Lothian was not known at the hotel, but it was always the same wherever he went. His wife often chaffed him about it. She said that he had a "tipping face." Whether that was so or not, the result was the same, he received immediate and marked attention. Rita noticed it with pride.

He had been, from the first moment he entered the Library in his simple flannel suit, just a charming and deferential companion. There had been no preliminaries. The thing had just happened, that was all. In all her life she had never met any one so delightful, and in her excitement and pleasure she had quite forgotten that he was Gilbert Lothian.

But it came back to her very vividly now.

How calmly he ordered the dinner and conferred with the wine-man, who had a great silver chain hanging on his shirt front! What an accustomed man-of-the-world air there was about him, how they all ran to serve him. She blushed mentally as she thought of her simple confidences and girlish chatter--and yet he hadn't seemed to mind.

She looked round her. "It is difficult to realise," she said, as much to herself as to her host, "that there are people who dine in places like this every day."

Lothian looked round him. "Yes," he said a trifle bitterly, as his eye fell upon a party of Jews who had motored down from London,--"people who rule over three-quarters of the world--and an entire eclipse of the intellect! You can see it here, unimportant as it is, compared to the great places in London and Paris--'the feasting and the folly and the fun, the lying and the l.u.s.ting and the drink'!"

Rita looked at him wonderingly, following the direction of his eyes.

"Those people seem happy," she said, not understanding his sudden mood, "they are all laughing and they all seem amused."

"Yes, but people don't always laugh because they are amused.

Slow-witted, obese brained people--like those Israelites there--laugh very often on the chance that there is something funny which eludes them. They don't want to betray themselves. When I see people like that I feel as if my mind ought to be sprinkled with some disinfecting fluid."

As a matter of fact, the party at the other table with their handsome Oriental faces and alert, vivacious manner did not seem in the least slow-witted, nor were they. One of them was a peer and great newspaper proprietor, another a musician of world celebrity. Lothian's cynicism jarred on the pleasure of the moment. For the first time the girl did not feel quite _en rapport_, and was a little uneasy. He struck too harsh a note.

But at that moment waiters bustled up with soup, champagne in an ice pail, and a decanter of some bright amber liquid for Lothian. He poured and drank quickly, with an involuntary sigh of satisfaction.

"How I wanted that!" he said with a frank smile. "I was talking nonsense, Miranda, but I was tired. And I'm afraid that when I get tired I'm cross. I've been working very hard lately and am a little run down," he added, anxious that she should not think that their talk had tired him, and feeling the necessity of some explanation.

It satisfied her immediately. His change of voice and face rea.s.sured her, the little shadow pa.s.sed.

"Oh, I _am_ enjoying myself!" she said with a sigh of pleasure, "but what's this? How strange! The soup is _cold_!"

"Yes, didn't you know? It's iced consomme, awfully good in hot weather."

She shook her head. "No, I didn't," she said. "I've never been anywhere or seen anything, you know. When Ethel and I feel frightfully rich, we have dinner at Lyons, but I've never been to a swagger restaurant before."