“You ought to have told me before.”

“No, I oughtn’t.  Nothing could have been more foolish.”

“But who are you the widow of?”

“Hurrah!” cried Audrey.  “You are a sport, Winnie!  I’ll tell you all the interesting details in the train.”

In another minute Aguilar, gloomy and unbending, had received the keys of Flank Hall, and the procession crunched down the drive on its way to the station.

CHAPTER VII

THE CIGARETTE GIRL

Audrey did not deem that she had begun truly to live until the next morning, when they left London, after having passed a night in the Charing Cross Hotel.  During several visits to London in the course of the summer Audrey had learnt something about the valuelessness of money in a metropolis chiefly inhabited by people who were positively embarrassed by their riches.  She knew, for example, that money being very plentiful and stylish hats very rare, large quantities of money had to be given for infinitesimal quantities of hats.  The big and glittering shops were full of people whose pockets bulged with money which they were obviously anxious to part with in order to obtain goods, while the proud shop-assistants, secure in the knowledge that money was naught and goods were everything, did their utmost, by hauteur and steely negatives, to render any transaction possible.  It was the result of a mysterious “Law of Exchange.”  She was aware of this.  She had lost her childhood’s naive illusions about the sovereignty of money.

Nevertheless she received one or two shocks on the journey, which was planned upon the most luxurious scale that the imagination of Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son could conceive.  There was four pounds and ninepence to pay for excess luggage at Charing Cross.  Half a year earlier four pounds would have bought all the luggage she could have got together.  She very nearly said to the clerk at the window:  “Don’t you mean shillings?” But in spite of nervousness, blushings, and all manner of sensitive reactions to new experiences, her natural sang-froid and instinctive knowledge of the world saved her from such a terrible lapse, and she put down a bank-note without the slightest hint that she was wondering whether it would not be more advantageous to throw the luggage away.

The boat was crowded, and the sea and wind full of menace.  Fighting their way along the deck after laden porters, Audrey and Miss Ingate simultaneously espied the private cabin list hung in a conspicuous spot.  They perused it as eagerly as if it had been the account of a cause celebre. Among the list were two English lords, an Honourable Mrs., a baroness with a Hungarian name, several Teutonic names, and Mrs. Moncreiff.