of traffic whirled and circled, one of the great driving-belts of the huge city.  Over it all, to their right, towered those glorious Houses of Parliament, the very sight of which made Frank repent his bitter words about English architecture.  They stood in the old porch gazing at the scene.  It was so wonderful to come back at one stride from the great country of the past to the greater country of the present.  Here was the very thing which these dead men lived and died to build.

‘It’s not much past three,’ said Frank.  ’What a gloomy place to take you to!  Good heavens, we have one day together, and I take you to a cemetery!  Shall we go to a matinee to counteract it?’

But Maude laid her hand upon his arm.

’I don’t think, Frank, that I was ever more impressed, or learned more in so short a time, in my life.  It was a grand hour—­an hour never to be forgotten.  And you must not think that I am ever with you to be amused.  I am with you to accompany you in whatever seems to you to be highest and best.  Now before we leave the dear old Abbey, promise me that you will always live your own highest and never come down to me.’

‘I can very safely promise that I will never come down to you,’ said Frank.  ’I may climb all my life, and yet there are parts of your soul which will be like snow-peaks in the clouds to me.  But you will be now and always my own dear comrade as well as my sweetest wife.  And now, Maude, what shall it be, the theatre or the Australians?’

‘Do you wish to go to either very much?’

‘Not unless you do.’

’Well, then, I feel as if either would be a profanation.  Let us walk together down to the Embankment, and sit on one of the benches there, and watch the river flowing in the sunshine, and talk and think of all that we have seen.’

CHAPTER VI—­TWO SOLOS AND A DUET

The night before the wedding, Frank Crosse and his best man, Rupton Hale, dined at the Raleigh Club with Maude’s brother, Jack Selby, who was a young lieutenant in a Hussar regiment.  Jack was a horsy, slangy young sportsman who cared nothing about Frank’s worldly prospects, but had given the match his absolute approval from the moment that he realised that his future brother had played for the Surrey Second.  ‘What more can you want?’ said he.  ’You won’t exactly be a Mrs. W. G., but you will be on the edge of first-class cricket.’  And Maude, who rejoiced in his approval, without quite understanding the grounds for it, kissed him, and called him the best of brothers.

The marriage was to be at eleven o’clock at St. Monica’s Church, and the Selbys were putting up at the Langham.  Frank stayed at the Metropole, and so did Rupton Hale.  They were up early, their heads and nerves none the better for Jack Selby’s hospitality of the night before.