Then it was discovered that everybody was going the same
way, and it ended with two hansoms being called. Miss Fisher and Nick
Walcot got into one, Captain Rowley and Doady Donne occupied the other.
"How tiresome the sun is, let me put up your parasol?" said our friend
Rowley, with evident anxiety to screen her; but Doady begged he wouldn't
trouble.
"I don't mind the sun a bit," she said. "And I'm not in the least
afraid of any one seeing me, since you've married you've grown so very
respectable."
"Confound her," ejaculated Rowley mentally, and he congratulated himself
on the emptiness of London, resolving to keep his head well back and sit
a little on one side as they went through Piccadilly. Doady asked a
question about some friend in whom she had formerly felt an interest;
this led to past reminiscences and the telling of some good story, over
which Rowley was still laughing when there came a crash, followed by a
bump and a swaying forward and back. "Hang the fellow, he's run into
another hansom!"
In an instant Rowley had dexterously jumped out on to the pavement; the
occupant of the other hansom, whose wheel was locked into theirs,
obeying the same instinct, had done the same.
"Why, if ain't Teddy Vere. Oh my!" ejaculated one feminine voice
shrilly, while from under a red parasol, still open, another groaned,
"Rowley! it can't be! Oh, what will become of me?"
Self-preservation is the first law of nature; the woman who hesitates is
lost.
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