'And during that month you will stay where you are now staying, and you will let me see you often, and be with you, and speak to you, and hear of you, and hear you, and touch your hand--now and then?' 'Yes.' 'And do you think there is likely to be any reason for hope?' 'Now,' she said, 'the subject is closed for a month. Let it rest. The cab has stopped. This must be the Criterion.' CHAPTER VI. AT THE CRITERION. Osborne helped his companion out of the hansom, and took the number of it, and paid the driver. When they turned their backs upon the street and walked towards the hall, he offered her his arm. She took it, with a quiet smile, remarking, while she kept her eyes fixed upon the causeway,-- 'Only yesterday you were displeased when I took your arm, and now you offer it quickly.' 'But there is a great difference between this day and yesterday.' 'Do you really think so? Well, I did not notice it; but now you call my attention to it, I do think it is colder.' He drew up, and looked reproachfully into her face. 'Miss Gordon, you promised not to laugh at me.' 'And you promised to say nothing more of what has passed for a month.' At that moment the driver of the cab stood in front of Osborne, and dropping the brass butt of his whip within an inch of Osborne's toes, said, in a tone of insolent menace, 'No, you don't, my blooming lad! No,_you_ don't!' 'What is the matter? Get out of the way;' quietly, firmly. 'No, I won't! Why did you take the number of my cab?' 'That is my own affair,' answered Osborne, growing confused and crimson. A crowd collected, and two policemen were sailing slowly down upon the scene. 'It's something of my affair as well,' said the driver vehemently. 'I'm not a-going to be hauled up for any of your tricks and plants. I'm only a poor man, and it isn't right and just. Pay me my honest fare.' 'I shall give you no more,' said Osborne, becoming still more confused. 'What is wrong?' asked a man of the driver. 'I took him and the lady up at Broad Sanctuary,' explained the driver to the crowd; 'and I drove them here, and he takes the number of my cab, and slips a sovereign into my hand, and walks away without asking for his change.' He held out his open hand with the yellow sovereign shining in the middle of his dirty palm like the sun through a London fog. 'But I know his game. He wants me to drive off, and then he'd have me lagged for his blooming change; and I with a wife and family of children looking to me!' 'Shame!' cried the crowd. 'I intended the sovereign for you,' said Osborne, more composedly. 'Please let me pass.'