It was dawn on the morning of the sixteenth and a big Rolls stood at the door of Blake's priory. Jimmy came out of the house fastening his gloves and cast an eye at the sky. The chauffeur was waiting.
“I shall not want you, Jones,” said Jimmy. “You had better go to your home and your people.”
Jones grinned.
“I've got neither home nor people, sir,” he said cheerfully, “and if I don't go with you, I shall stay here.”
“Well, you'd better come along,” said jimmy. “No, you'd better stay,” he said after a moment's thought.
It was curious how he had to readjust his system of conduct in the light of the great factor. He could not take the man with him, because that would mean Jones would have to be told, and he could not trust any man to receive that stunning news with philosophy.
Joe came out, buttoned to the neck in a heavy overcoat, for the morning was chilly, and then Delia came, and Jimmy took both her hands in his and smiled into her face.
“You look lovely, Delia,” said Jimmy, “Did you sleep well?”
She nodded.
“It was absurd to sleep, wasn't it?” she laughed. “But one cannot break the habit of a lifetime, even though”
She looked at Jones and cut her words short. Joe climbed into the back of the car, lit his pipe, and pulled a rug over his legs.
“Good-by, Jones,” said Jimmy.
“Good morning, sir,” said Jones, walking by the side of the slowly moving car. “What time do you expect to come back? You'll be back to-night, of course, sir?”
“I don't think so,” said Jimmy, and with a wave of his hand was gone. He did not look back at Blake's priory. This “Day of Uniting” was a day of looking forward.
The streets were deserted, the world was sleeping, and the only people he saw were the policemen slowly pacing their beats.
They stopped at Guildford for breakfast, and Guildford was en fête. The “Day of Uniting” had coincided with the unveiling of the new war memorial and the streets were alive with holiday folk. Here, apparently, the instructions in the proclamation were not being observed. Servants were on duty at the hotel where they breakfasted, though one of them told him that they were being released at twelve o'clock, to spend the day with their families.
The newspapers had been published that morning, since their publication did not involve working very far into “The Day.” Jimmy bought a copy on the street and gazed at it with interest. In billions of years' time perhaps a new civilization would reach its zenith. Would there be brains that could understand, supposing their owners discovered a newspaper which had escaped the world's destruction and the passage of ages, just what all these little figures in black upon white signified to a bygone age?
He turned to the principal news page. There was a story of a crime which had been committed a week before and which had excited attention. There was a statement concerning a new measure for the adjustment of income tax which was to be introduced at the next session of Parliament, there was a speech or two, and the record of a meeting of the royal society, where a professor had lectured upon the peculiar properties which had been discovered in radioactive clay. Jimmy folded the paper with a sigh and put it into his pocket.
“A very uninteresting newspaper,” he said, “and thank God for it!”
“What did they do with this man Palythorpe?” asked the girl.
Jimmy shook his head.
“I think he has been sent to the Tower of London. It is very likely,” he added simply, “that he is dead.”
Their progress was a leisurely one. Jimmy had one hand on the steering wheel, in the other he held Delia's. Her calmness was anodyne to his troubled spirit, and he marveled at her serenity. She had extracted the sting from death and he worshiped her. At a little village where they stopped, they met the vicar outside the parish church, and he gossiped pleasantly.
“Did you see the comet last night? I am told it was a wonderful sight.”
“No,” said Jimmy. “I did not see it.”
“Some of my parishioners saw it. The men who went to work very early in the morning. They said it was extremely beautiful, much larger than any comet they had seen. In fact, it was visible after daybreak.”
“How fascinating!” said Jimmy and changed the subject.
They had to avoid the big military camp which the government had created on Salisbury Plain during the war, and at last they came to a spot in a fold of land, where a little stream trickled and trees cast a pleasant shade. Jimmy turned the car from the road and brought it across country into the tiny valley.
“And here we are,” he said gently. “We'll have lunch in a jiffy. I'm starving.”