Brumley found something slighting and unpleasant in his manner.
It was one of those little temperamental jars which happen to men of
delicate sensibilities and Mr. Brumley tried to be reassuringly
overbearing in his manner and then lost his temper and was threatening
and so wasted precious moments what time Lady Harman waited on the
platform, with a certain shadow of doubt falling upon her confidence in
him, and watched the five-twenty-five gather itself together and start
Londonward. Mr. Brumley came out of the ticket office resolved to travel
without tickets and carry things through with a high hand just as it
became impossible to do so by that train, and then I regret to say he
returned for some further haughty passages with the ticket clerk upon
the duty of public servants to point out such oversights as his, that
led to repartee and did nothing to help Lady Harman on her homeward way.

Then he discovered a current time-table and learnt that now even were
all the ticket difficulties over-ridden he could not get Lady Harman to
Putney before twenty minutes past seven, so completely is the South
Western Railway not organized for conveying people from Hampton Court to
Putney. He explained this as well as he could to Lady Harman, and then
led her out of the station in another last desperate search for a taxi.

"We can always come back for that next train," he said. "It doesn't go
for half an hour."

"I cannot blame myself sufficiently," he said for the eighth or ninth
time....

It was already well past a quarter to six before Mr. Brumley bethought
himself of the London County Council tramcars that run from the palace
gates. Along these an ample four-pennyworth was surely possible and at
the end would be taxis----There _must_ be taxis. The tram took
them--but oh! how slowly it seemed!--to Hammersmith by a devious route
through interminable roads and streets, and long before they reached
that spot twilight had passed into darkness, and all the streets and
shops were flowering into light and the sense of night and lateness was
very strong. After they were seated in the tram a certain interval of
silence came between them and then Lady Harman laughed and Mr. Brumley
laughed--there was no longer any need for him to be energetic and
fussy--and they began to have that feeling of adventurous amusement
which comes on the further side of desperation. But beneath the
temporary elation Lady Harman was a prey to grave anxieties an