He was quick to grasp her spirit. They were to have this happiness as if the day were one of many days, some past, more to come. They were to give themselves up to the joy of each other's companionship in simple acceptance of the passing hour; not dilating on the occasion as a parting; not letting it be overshadowed by the sense of what they had so tragically missed in life. Parting there would be; and then sadness would descend swiftly enough. Till that bitter moment--sparkle and enjoyment! He had come prepared to talk much of themselves; but he saw she was wiser than he, and at once fell in with her mood. There would be all the rest of his life to lament in. "Have you thought of any plan?" he asked. "None," she replied. "To tell the truth, I rather shrank from anything definite. 'The wind bloweth as it listeth.' Let us go on without end or purpose. That seems to me the ideal way." "But we are bound to make a beginning. After that the game may play itself." "Let us get away from the London we know; let us go to a romantic, wonderful London that we have never seen." She was almost echoing his thought. "We shall glide discreetly among the crowds as if we belonged to them." "Then away!" he laughed. "To horse--or rather, to omnibus! Or is it to be hansom?" "Everything in turn, and nothing long." It was a cold day, yet though the sky was lightly clouded, the air was free from mist. As they stepped into the street a few patches of blue were visible, and a wintry sunshine filtered down with a pleasant sense of promise. The neighbouring houses were for the most part shuttered and silent, but the outlook on the great triangular space before them was cheerfully busy. "How unlike the scene of your painting!" she exclaimed. "There is no suggestion of drama here, but just the average feeling of the London thoroughfare--busy people going their way, and a procession of omnibuses mixed up with carts and hansoms." "Yet my own scene swims before my eyes--I have lived with it so long." "You have still to live with it," she reminded him. "If I do not die of it," he answered pleasantly. "Seriously, I came near to doing so." "This omnibus is marked 'Aldgate,'" she flew off. "Now that makes me think of Aldgate Pump. I wonder if it goes near the Pump?" Wyndham jumped on the foot-board, and put the question to the conductor. "We pass within a yard of it," was the reply. "Good," said Wyndham. The omnibus drew up, and Lady Betty mounted the stairway, and they seated themselves on the roof. "Look!" he exclaimed. "The clouds are suddenly breaking; it will be all blue and sunshine soon." "A grey ghostly blue, a cold, charming sunshine." "Yet the promise is splendid after all this winter." "The promise is splendid," she echoed; "and we are so happy to-day." "We are so happy," he repeated.