For the first ten minutes Mr. Russell lay on his back listening to the busy sound of the bees filling their honeybags, and the sheep filling themselves, and Cousin Gustus filling his diary.  He watched the rooks travel across the varied country of the sky.  He watched a little black and white bird that danced in the air to the tune of its own very high and flippant song.  He watched the sun ford a deep and foaming cloud.  And all the time he remembered many reasons why it would have been nice to go up to London.  Oddly enough, a ’bus-conductor seemed to stand quite apart from these reasons in the back of his mind for several minutes.  One would hardly have believed that a bus-conductor could have held her own so long in the mind of a person like Mr. Russell.

And Providence finally ordained that he should feel in his cigarette case and find it empty.

“No cigarettes,” said Mr. Russell, after pondering for a moment on this disappointment.

“You smoke too much,” said Cousin Gustus.  “I once knew a man who over-smoked all his life, and when he got a bullet in his lung in the Zulu War he died, simply as the result of his foolishness.  No recuperative power.  They said his lungs were simply leather.”

“Should have thought that would’ve been a protection,” said Mr. Russell.

“The train is not even signalled yet,” said Cousin Gustus.  “You would have time to go to the station and tell Kew to get you some cigarettes.”

But this was not Providence’s intention, as interpreted by Mr. Russell.  “D’you know, I half believe I’ll go up too,” he said.  “Would you be lonely?”

“Not in the least,” said Cousin Gustus pathetically; “I’m used to being left alone.”

As the signals dropped Mr. Russell sprang to his feet and ran down the slope.  He had country clothes on, and some thistledown and a sprig or two of clover were sticking to them.  He reached the station in time, and fell over a crate of hens.  The hens were furious about it, and said so.  Mr. Russell said nothing, but he felt hurt when the porter who opened the door for him asked if the hens were his.  After the train had started he wished he had had time to tell the porter how impossible it was that a man who owned a crate full of hens should fall over it.  And then he thought that would have been neither witty nor convincing.  He was one of those lucky people who say so little that they rarely have need to regret what they have said.

The business that dragged him so precipitately from the country must, I suppose, have been very urgent.  It chanced that it lay at Ludgate Circus, and it also chanced—­not in the least unnaturally—­that at half-past eleven he was standing at Kensington Church waiting to be beckoned to once more by a ’bus-conductor.  The only unnatural thing was that several ’buses bound for Ludgate Circus passed without winning the patronage of Mr. Russell.

The conductor came.  Mr. Russell saw her round face and squared hair appear out of the confusion of the street.  He noticed with surprise that he had not borne in mind the pleasing way in which the strap of her hat tilted her already tilted chin.