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‘There’s not the slightest need of your walking alone,’ Mr.
Bantling gaily interposed. ‘I should be greatly pleased to go
with you.’
‘I simply meant that you’d be late for dinner,’ Ralph re-
turned. ‘Those poor ladies may easily believe that we refuse,
at the last, to spare you.’
‘You had better have a hansom, Henrietta,’ said Isabel.
‘I’ll get you a hansom if you’ll trust me,’ Mr. Bantling
went on. ‘We might walk a little till we meet one.’
‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t trust him, do you?’ Henrietta
enquired of Isabel.
‘I don’t see what Mr. Bantling could do to you,’ Isabel
obligingly answered; ‘but, if you like, we’ll walk with you
till you find your cab.’
‘Never mind; we’ll go alone. Come on, Mr. Bantling, and
take care you get me a good one.’
Mr. Bantling promised to do his best, and the two took
their departure, leaving the girl and her cousin together in
the square, over which a clear September twilight had now
begun to gather. It was perfectly still; the wide quadrangle of
dusky houses showed lights in none of the windows, where
the shutters and blinds were closed; the pavements were a
vacant expanse, and, putting aside two small children from
a neighbouring slum, who, attracted by symptoms of ab-
normal animation in the interior, poked their faces between
the rusty rails of the enclosure, the most vivid object within
sight was the big red pillar-post on the southeast corner.
‘Henrietta will ask him to get into the cab and go with
her to Jermyn Street,’ Ralph observed. He always spoke of

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