ed her arm in Hawksley's, and they went on; and the crowd
dissolved; only the policeman and the blind man remained, the one
contemplating his duty and the other his vision of heaven.

"What a lark!" exclaimed Hawksley.

"Were you asking me for your hat?"

"I was telling the bobby to go to the devil!"

They laughed like children.

"March hares!" he said.

"No. April fools! Good heavens, the time! Twenty minutes to seven. Our
dinner!"

"We'll take a taxi.... Dash it!"

"What's wrong?"

"Not a bally copper in my pockets!"

"And I left my handbag on the sideboard! We'll have to walk. If we hurry
we can just about make it."

Meantime, there lay in wait for them--this pair of April fools--a
taxicab. It stood snugly against the curb opposite the entrance to
Cutty's apartment. The door was slightly ajar.

The driver watched the south corner; the three men inside never took
their gaze off the north corner.

"But, I say, hasn't this been a jolly lark?"

"If we had known we could have borrowed a dollar from the blind man;
he'd never have missed it."

CHAPTER XXVII

Champagne in the glass is a beautiful thing to see. So is water,
the morning after. That is the fault with frolic; there is always an
inescapable rebound. The most violent love drops into humdrum tolerance.
A pessimist is only a poor devil who has anticipated the inevitable; he
has his headache at the start. Mental champagnes have their aftermaths
even as the juice of the grape.

Hawksley and Kitty, hurrying back, began to taste lees. They began to
see things, too--menace in every loiterer, threat in every alley. They
had had a glorious lark; somewhere beyond would be the piper with an
appalling bill. They exaggerated the dangers, multiplied them; perhaps
wisely. There would be no let-down in their vigilance until they reached
haven. But this state of mind they covered with smiling masks, banter,
bursts of laughter, and flashes of wit.

They were both genuinely frightened, but with unselfish fear. Kitty's
fear was not for herself but for Johnny Two-Hawks. If anything happened
the blame would rightly be hers. With that head he wasn't strictly
accountable for what he did; she was. A firm negative on her part and
he would never have left the apartment. And his fear was wholly for this
astonishing girl. He had recklessly thrust her into grave danger. Who
knew, better than he, the implacable hate of the men who sought to kill
him?

Moreover,