To all of which Herbert answered very solemnly: “I am not, mother.” He was, however, it seemed, a child with a considerable sense of humour, because he suddenly pinched Jeremy in the fatty part of his thigh, and then looked at him very severely as though challenging him to say anything about it, and it suddenly occurred to Jeremy that you had a great advantage if you looked old and solemn, because no one would ever believe anything wicked of you. His thoughts, however, of young Herbert were soon lost in the excitement of the adventure of the cab. Nothing that he had ever known was more wonderful than this, the rolling through the lighted town, the background so dark like the inside of a box, the tearing through the market-place now so silent and mysterious, down through North Street, over the Pol bridge, and so out into the country. The silence of the high road, rhythmed by the clamp-clamp of the horse’s hoofs, the mysterious gleam of white patches as the road was illumined by the light from the carriage lamps, the heavy thick-set hedges, watching as though they were an army of soldiers drawn up in solemn order to let the carriage pass through, the smell of the night mingled with the smell of the cab, the rattle of the ill-fitting windows, the excited, half-strangled breathing of Mary—all these together produced in Jeremy’s breast a feeling of exaltation, pride and adventure that was never to be forgotten. They were all packed very closely together and bounced about like marionettes without self-control. Jeremy said in a voice hoarse with bumping and excitement: “Shall I put my gloves on yet?” He had never had white gloves before. Mrs. Carstairs said: “You might try them on, dear, and see. Be careful not to split them”—which, of course, he immediately did; not a very bad split and between the thumb and finger of the left hand, so that perhaps it would not be seen. While with some concern he was considering this, they drove through park gates and along a wide drive. To Jeremy’s excited fancy silver birds seemed to fly past the windows and sheets of stars bend down and flash to the ground and rise swinging up to heaven again. They passed a stretch of water on their right, dark like a blind mirror, but with a crack of light that crossed it and then faded into splashing gold where the lamps and shining windows of the house reflected in it. They were there; other carriages also; children like ghosts passing up the stone steps, the great house so strangely indifferent. He saw as he got out of the carriage dark spaces beyond the splash of light where the garden was hidden, cold and reserved and apart. It was like him to notice that, the only child that evening who saw.