tarted away, Jay discovered that her hat was not adequately
attached to her head. There are few discoveries more depressing than
this at the beginning of a day of movement.
The bells of St. Paul's began to sing. Little fairy bells dodged behind
and about the great notes. But Christina soon swept the sound into the
forgotten air behind her.
"I've got a lot to talk to you about," said Mr. Russell as he headed
Christina Hackney-way. He was conscious that he was taking his miracle
curiously for granted. I don't think he really believed in it yet. For
Mr. Russell all truth was haunted by the ghost of a clanking lie. He
discerned deceit on the part of Providence where no deceit was. "I'll
give you your brother's message first, because it interests me personally
least. He is gone. There was a sudden move across the Channel last week,
and he went--I suppose--ten days ago now. The message he hadn't time to
give you was an appeal to give up 'bus-conducting. He had an absurd idea
that you walked out with men-conductors in Victoria Park."
"Not at all absurd," said Jay. "Not half so absurd as the idea of driving
out with a casual fare. I know some delightful conductors and drivers;
we joke together when the traffic sticks. There is one perfect darling
called Edward; his only fault is that he drives a mere Steamer. But we
always bow, and once when a horse fell down and we got hung up for twenty
minutes in the Strand, he sang me a little song about a star."
Mr. Russell listened to all this very attentively, and then continued:
"Your brother wants you to go back to your Family. His last words to me
about it were that if you could manage to be ladylike for three years or
the duration of War, at the end of that time he and you would go and live
by your two selves in New Zealand, and if you liked you need wear no
skirts at all there, but riding breeches all the time."
"Ladylike!" snorted Jay. "What's the use of ladyliquity even for five
minutes? So Kew sent you as an antidote? I suppose he didn't know you
were one of my fares?"
"A fare," said Mr. Russell sententiously, "may, I suppose, be a wonderful
revelation, because you only see your fare's eyes for a second, and the
things you may see have no limit, and you never know the silly little
truth about him. Yet even so, there is more than a ticket and a look
between you and me, and you know it."
"Possibly there is a Secret World between you and me," said Jay. "But
that's a pr
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