did not
cease cursing. It was a reaction which I do not care to characterize;
but I will not conceal that it occurred. The fit spent itself before he
reached the hotel, for most of Parliament Street was blocked for the
spectacular purposes of his funeral, and his driver had to seek devious
ways. The cursing over, he began to smooth his plumes in detail. At the
hotel, out of sheer nervousness, he gave the cabman half-a-crown, which
was preposterous.

Another cab drove up nearly at the exact instant of his arrival. And, as
a capping to the day, Mrs. Alice Challice stepped out of it.

* * * * *

CHAPTER V

_Alice on Hotels_

She was wearing the same red roses.

"Oh!" she said, very quickly, pouring out the words generously from the
inexhaustible mine of her good heart. "I'm so sorry I missed you
Saturday night. I can't tell you how sorry I am. Of course it was all my
fault. I oughtn't to have got into the lift without you. I ought to have
waited. When I was in the lift I wanted to get out, but the lift-man was
too quick for me. And then on the platforms--well, there was such a
crowd it was useless! I knew it was useless. And you not having my
address either! I wondered whatever you would think of me."

"My dear lady!" he protested. "I can assure you I blamed only myself. My
hat blew off, and----"

"Did it now!" she took him up breathlessly. "Well, all I want you to
understand really is that I'm not one of those silly sort of women that
go losing themselves. No. Such a thing's never happened to me before,
and I shall take good care----"

She glanced round. He had paid both the cabmen, who were departing, and
he and Mrs. Alice Challice stood under the immense glass portico of the
Grand Babylon, exposed to the raking stare of two commissionaires.

"So you _are_ staying here!" she said, as if laying hold of a fact which
she had hitherto hesitated to touch.

"Yes," he said. "Won't you come in?"

He took her into the rich gloom of the Grand Babylon dashingly, fighting
against the demon of shyness and beating it off with great loss. They
sat down in a corner of the principal foyer, where a few electric lights
drew attention to empty fauteuils and the blossoms on the Aubusson
carpet. The world was at lunch.

"And a fine time I had getting your address!" said she. "Of course I
wrote at once to Selwood Terrace, as soon as I got home, but I had the
wrong number, somehow, and I