Part 37 (1/2)
”Then you won't change the day, truly?” Her urbanity was in no wise ihtly ”I daresay you aren't used to people like et the better of Seven Sachs, but not of him, Edward Henry Machin from the Five Towns!)
”Marrier!” said he, suddenly, with a bluff, huhtness, ”you know you're in a very aard position here, and you know you've got to see Alloyd for me before six o'clock Be off with you I will be responsible for Miss April”
(”I'll show these Londoners!” he said to hiet into it”)
And he did in fact succeed in dis Mr Marrier, after the latter had talked Azure business with Miss April for a couple of o too,” said Elsie, imperturbable, impenetrable
”One nalled Marrier to depart After all he was paying the fellow three pounds a week
She watched Marrier thread his way out Already she had put on her gloves
”I o,” she repeated; her rich red lips then closed definitely
”Have you a motor here?” Edward Henry asked
”No”
”Then if Ifull at him Whereby he was somewhat startled and put out of countenance
V
”Are we friends?” he asked roguishly
”I hope so,” she said, with no diminution of her inscrutability
They were in a taxi-cab, rolling along the Eham Palace Hotel, where she said she lived He was happy ”Why aht ”_What_ is there in her that makes me happy?”
He did not know But he knew that he had never been in a taxi-cab, or anywhere else, with any woance flattered him enor it with the best of the in her worldly maturity
Was she twenty-seven? She could not beYes, he was fully aware that he was a elic Nellie, of the three children, and of his mother But it seemed to him that his own case differed in some very subtle and yet effective manner from the similar case of any other married man And he lived, unharassed by apprehensions, in the lively joy of the moment
”But,” she said, ”I hope you won't come to see me act”
”Why?”
”Because I should prefer you not to You would not be sympathetic to me”
”Oh, yes, I should”
”I shouldn't feel it so” And then, with a swift disarrangement of all the folds of her skirt, she turned and faced him ”Mr Machin, do you knohy I've let you coood-natured wo her head
”No! I simply wanted to tell you that you've ruined Rose--my cousin”