“It must be simply frightful to be twenty-eight,” said Greta with conviction. She snuggled up to Archie and whispered, “Is Margaret awfully old too?”

“Ssh! She’s twenty-four. Pretty bad-isn’t it?”

Greta considered.

“I shall be married years and years before I’m twenty-four. It’s rather old, but I do love Margaret all the same.”

When the curtain had fallen for the last time, they came out into a windy night. It had been raining; the pavements were wet, and the wind was wet.

Freddy shepherded his party briskly.

“We’ll just go along to the corner and cross over. Archie can get us a taxi quite easily from there. Much better than waiting in this crush. Rather nice to get a breath of air- what? Lucky it’s not raining-isn’t it? Now I remember once-” he addressed himself to Greta; fragments of the anecdote that followed reached Charles as he walked a yard ahead…“and I said I’d give her a lift because it was so wet…too bad, wasn’t it?…me, of all people in the world…and I think her name was Gwendolen Jones, but I can’t be sure…”

They crossed to an island in the middle of the road. Archie made a rapid dash and got to the farther side. Freddy was fussing over Margaret and Greta.

“Now, my dear, take my arm. Margaret, perhaps you’d better take Charles’ arm.”

Charles heard Margaret say, “I don’t want anyone’s arm,” and at the same moment the people on the island began to flow across. He saw Margaret and Greta together, Freddy next Margaret; and then, when he was half-way over, he heard Greta scream. He turned. It was a scream of sharp and anguished fear. He looked, and could see only a crowd and a confusion. There was a bus standing still.

He pushed through, and saw Greta just not under the bus. She was lying as she had fallen, her hands spread out, her fair hair splashed with mud, her face splashed with mud. Freddy and the bus-conductor were picking her up, and as Charles arrived she was beginning to cry. He looked round for Margaret, and saw her standing straight and still. The light from the arc-lamp was on her face.

Charles felt his heart turn over. The whole thing had happened in a moment, and in a moment it was past. The driver of the bus was saying loudly and dogmatically, “She ain’t hurt, I tell you. She ain’t touched I tell you”; and this was mixed with Greta’s sobs and Freddy’s “Very careless- very careless indeed! The young lady might have been killed.”

Charles said, “What happened?” and the sound of his own voice startled him. It seemed to startle Greta too. She gave a much louder sob and flung both arms round his neck with a wail of “Take me home! Oh, Charles, please take me home!”

It was at this moment that the policeman arrived.

Freddy was in his element at once.

“Most unfortunate, constable-the young lady might have been killed. We were all going across together, my daughter and this young lady and I, and she slipped-Didn’t you, my dear? Dear me, we ought to be very thankful she isn’t hurt. She slipped and fell right in front of the bus. Now, my dear, you’re quite safe. No-don’t cry. You’re not hurt, are you?”

“She wasn’t touched,” said the driver of the bus in the same loud aggressive voice.

“Are you hurt, miss?” inquired the policeman.

Charles had removed Greta’s arms from about his neck, but she still clung to his shoulder. In spite of the splashes of mud on her face she managed to look pretty and appealing.

“I might have been killed,” she said.

“Are you hurt, miss?”

“I might have been killed,” said Greta with a sob. “Someone pushed me, and I fell right under that horrible bus.”

“Any injuries, miss?”

“N-no,” said Greta. She gazed down at the drabbled white skirt which her open coat disclosed. “Oh, my frock’s spoilt!”

It was like a nightmare. When Archie came up with a taxi, Charles felt as if the whole thing had been going on for years and would continue to go on for ever. The interested crowd; the voice of the bus driver; Greta’s hysterical sobbing; and the policeman writing things down in a note-book. Just outside all this, Margaret standing under the arc-light. She had not spoken a word or moved to come to Greta.

Charles touched her on the arm.

“Come along-we want to get out of this. Freddy says he’ll walk, and Archie’s going the other way. I’ll take you home.”

When he had put the girls into the taxi, Charles spoke for a moment to Archie Millar.

“I’ll fix up a talk some other time-to-night won’t do.”

It was only afterwards he thought it strange that Archie turned away without so much as a word.

CHAPTER XXX

Greta talked the whole way home:

“Wasn’t it a frightful thing to happen? Didn’t I have a most frightfully narrow escape?”

“How did it happen?” said Charles.

“Margaret and I were going across, and Freddy was going with us, and I heard the bus coming and I said, ‘Oh!’ and Margaret said, ‘Don’t be silly,’ and I started to run. And someone pushed me frightfully hard, and I fell right under the bus.”

She held Charles tightly by the hand; her fingers were warm and clinging. She went on talking:

“I always did hate crossings, but now I shall hate them more than ever. Charles, it was frightful. Someone pushed me right under the bus.”

“You must have slipped,” said Charles.

He tried to draw his hand away, but she held it tight.

“No, I didn’t-not till I was pushed. I was just beginning to run, and someone pushed me hard.”

“Someone knocked against you in the crowd.”

“They knocked me right down,” said Greta indignantly. “And I’ve got mud all over my face, and Margaret’s white dress that she lent me is simply ruined. Margaret, your white frock is quite spoilt. Isn’t it a pity? But it’s not my fault-is it?”

She talked so much she did not even notice that Margaret did not speak at all. It was Charles for whom this silence came to be one of those unbearable things which have to be borne.

Greta exclaimed with pleasure when, having paid the taxi, he came upstairs with them. Her fright was wearing off; she was now merely excited and pleased at having Charles to talk to. She was not at all pleased, however, at being told to go to bed.

“I don’t want to. I want to sit up and talk-oh, for hours. Margaret, can’t we make coffee and have supper, just you and Charles and me? I’m frightfully hungry.”

Margaret was standing over the dead fire. She spoke now without turning round. Her voice sounded as if her lips were dry.

“There isn’t any coffee. You’d better go to bed.”

“Oh!” said Greta in a disappointed tone.

Charles put his hand on her shoulder and walked her to the door.

“Run along-there’s a good child. Wash your face and go to bed. I want to talk to Margaret.”

“Oh!” said Greta again. She pouted, looked at him through her eyelashes, and then suddenly showed all her very pretty teeth in a yawn.

“Off with you!” said Charles, and shut the door.

He came back to the hearth, Margaret had not moved, and for a long heavy minute Charles stood looking at her in silence. One arm lay on the mantelpiece. Her head was bent; she was looking down at the ashes of the fire. Her left hand hung straight at her side. The third finger would not have held his emerald now; the hand was thinner, whiter than it had been four years ago; it looked very white against the black dress.

Charles stood there. Three things said themselves over and over in his mind: “ A street accident would be the safest way”; “Someone pushed me”; and, “All the perfumes of Arabia.”

He looked at Margaret’s hand-Margaret’s white hand, hanging there as if all the life, all the strength had gone out of it.

“Someone pushed me frightfully hard”; “ A street accident would be the safest plan”; “All the perfumes of Arabia cannot sweeten-”