The sun sank; the chimneys deadened against the sky-line. When Wilkins, ten minutes later, stole in to see if his master needed his assistance, he found McAllister staring into the darkening west.
The bell on St. Timothy's tolled twelve o'clock as McAllister's hansom, straight from the Alhambra, clacked into the moonlit silence of Marlborough Square. A soft breath of distant gardens hung on the cool air. The chimneys rose from the house-tops sharp against a pale blue sky glittering with stars. Here and there a yellow window gleamed for a moment under the eaves, then vanished mysteriously. It was a night for lovers,--calm, still, ecstatic,--for hayfields under the harvest moon,--for white, ghostly reaches of the Thames,--for poetry,--for the exquisite enjoyment of earth's nearest approach to heaven.
"Beg pardon, sir. W'ere did you s'y, sir?"
"I said _Pondel's_," replied McAllister, rather sharply. He knew the cabby must think him a lunatic, but he didn't care. He intended to do the decent thing. Hang it! The fellow could mind his own business.
The hansom crossed the street and reined up in the shadow. All was dark, silent, deserted. Only the brass plate beside the door reflected strangely the moonlight across the way.
"'Ere's Pondel's, sir." The cabby got down and crossed the sidewalk to the door.
"All shut hup!" he commented. "Close at six."
A dark figure emerged quickly from, a neighboring shadow.
"'Ere! Wot is it you want?" demanded the bobby, accosting the cabman with tentative and potential roughness.
"Gent wants Pondel's. I dunno w'y. Ax 'im yerself!" responded cabby in an injured tone.
"This shop's closed at six o'clock," he announced. "Wot do you want?"
McAllister felt ten thousand times a fool. The beauty of the night, the odoriferous quiet, the peace of the deserted square, all made his errand seem monstrously idiotic. The universe was wheeling silently across the housetops; respectable men and women were in their beds; only night-hawks, lovers, policemen were abroad. It was as if a worm were raising objection to some cardinal law. Why should he try to upset the order and regularity of the London night, clattering into this slumbering section, startling a respectable somnolent policeman, making an ass of himself before his cabby--because somewhere a fellow was working overtime on his trousers. He imagined that as soon as he had made his explanation the bobby and the driver would collapse with merriment, and hale him to a mad-house. But McAllister set his teeth. He was fighting for a principle. He wouldn't "welch" now. He clambered out of the hansom.