“Clapham what?”

“No, Common.  Why was Clapham Common?”

“Well, why was it?”

“I can’t think, my dear.  I thought you might know.  It’s worried me for years.”

There was a choking sound, which suggested indignation struggling with laughter.  Then—­

“I’ve a good mind to ring off right away,” said Dot in a shaking voice.

“That would be cruel.  Think of the dance you led me this morning.  More.  Think of the dances you’re going to give me on Wednesday week.”

“Oh, you’re going, are you?”

“If you are.”

“What as?” she demanded.

“A billiard-marker in the time of Henry the Fourth.  And you?”

“I can’t rise to that.  I’m going as myself in a silver frock.”

“Could anything be sweeter?  A little silver Dot.  I shall cancel the body-snatcher—­I mean billiard-marker—­and go as Carry One.  Then we can dance together all the evening.  By the way, in case I don’t hear your voice, how shall I know you?”

“A dot,” said my lady, “is that which hath position, but no magnitude.”

“Possibly,” said I.  “It hath also a dear voice, which, though it be produced indefinitely, will never tire.  All the same, in view of the capacity of the Albert Hall, you’ve not given me much to go on.”

“As a matter of fact, each of us is going as a parallel line.  And that’s why I can tell you that I like the sound of you, and—­oh, well, enough said.”

“Thank you, Dot.  And why parallel lines?”

“They never meet.  So long.”

There was a faint chunk.

My lady had rung off.

Heavily I hung up my receiver.

When the others came in, I was still sitting in the dark at the table, thinking....

* * * * *

The bitter wind reigned over London for seven long days, meting untempered chastisement to its reluctant subjects, and dying unwept and gasping on a Monday night.  Tuesday was fair, still by comparison and indeed.  The sun shone and the sky was blue, and the smoke rose straight out of its chimneys with never the breath of a breeze to bend it, or even to set its columns swaying over the high roofs.  There was a great calm.  But, with it all, the weather was terribly cold.

That rare beauty which Dusk may bring to the Metropolis was that evening vouchsafed.  Streets that were mean put off their squalor, ways that were handsome became superb.  Grime went unnoticed, ugliness fell away.  All things crude or staring became indistinct, veiled with a web of that soft quality which only Atmosphere can spin and, having spun, hang about buildings of a windless eve.

As Night drew on, Magic came stealing down the blurred highways.  Lamps became lanterns, shedding a muffled light, deepening and charging with mystery the darkness beyond.  Old friends grew unfamiliar.  Where they had stood, fantastic shapes loomed out of the mist and topless towers rose up spectral to baffle memory.  Perspective fled, shadow and stuff were one, and, save where the radiance of the shops in some proud thoroughfare made gaudy noon of evening, the streets of Town were changed to echoing halls and long, dim, rambling galleries, hung all with twinkling lights that stabbed the gloom but deep enough to show their presence, as do the stars.