. . . Why
should I miss anything of this glorious chance? Why should I tamely
deliver Farrell at a house the name of which I had forgotten, the
situation of which was unknown to me, the domestics of which, when I
found it by painful inquiry, would probably receive me with cold
suspicion, as a misleader of middle-age? In fine, why should I not
strike the Common and roam there, letting the good car have her head
while Farrell slept himself sober. A line or two of the late Robert
Browning's waltzed in my head:"
'What if we still ride on, we two?'
'--Ride, ride together, for ever ride.'
"I brought the car gently to a halt on the edge of the heath, under
the stars, climbed out, and opened the door briskly.
"'Look here, Farrell,' I announced. 'I've a notion--'
"'Then it's more than _I_ have, of the way you're treating a lady!'
answered a voice; and out stepped a figure in skirts! By George,
Otty, you might have knocked me down with a--with a feather boa:
which was just what this apparition seemed preparing to do.
I had brought the taxi to rest close under a gas-lamp, and in the
light of it she confronted me, slightly swaying the hand which
grasped the boa.
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